DARTMOOR IDYLLS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA
THE QUEEN OF LOVE
CHEAP JACK ZITA
MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN
ARMINELL
JACQUETTA
URITH
KITTY ALONE
MARGERY OF QUETHER
NOEMI
THE BROOM-SQUIRE
DARTMOOR IDYLLS
BY
S." BARING-GOULD
METHUEN & CO.
36, ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1896
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
D37
f
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. JOHN AND JOAN ... ... ... I
II. DANIEL JACOBS ... ... ... 51
III. SNAILY HOUSE ... ... ... 69
iv. EPHRAIM'S PINCH ... ... ... 105
V. LITTLE DIXIE ... ... ... 121
VI. JONAS COAKER ... ... ... 137
VII. GOOSIE-VAIR ... ... ... 157
VIII. THE HAMMETTS ... ... ... l8l
IX. JOLLY LANE COT ... ... ... 2OI
X. GREEN RUSHES, O! ... ... ... 215
XI. AN OLD CROSS ... ... ... 239
JOHN AND JOAN
IT did not get into the papers.
If, now, the story of John and Joan's
adventures during the memorable blizzard of
1891 does appear in print it will not concern
that couple, for neither of them is a reader,
for the very good reason that neither of
them can read at all.
That is something for a man and a
woman to be able to plume themselves
upon in these days of advanced education.
But, although John and Joan are not
able to read, and likewise unable to write,
they are the joint authors of a literary
production which will outlast our century,
and that also is more than most authors can
say in these days of ephemeral publications.
This production was written at the
dictation of John and Joan. It was not
impressed on paper with printers' ink, but
2 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
was inscribed on a slate slab with a graving-
tool.
This work was composed and engraved
some ten years ago, and,, although in 1891
it was slightly added to, it has not been
completed and published yet. Its com
pletion and publication are dependent on a
contingency which has, happily, not yet
taken place. In a word, this literary
achievement — the result of the intellectual
efforts of John and Joan — is their tomb
stone, which is preserved in their cottage,
and is there conned daily by them. Neither
knows the letters of the alphabet, yet both
can read what is written on the headstone, for
they know what the lines and curves and dots
are intended to represent. In March, 1891,
the monumental inscription stood thus : —
§totttb to the JEemorg
OF
JOHN AND JOAN NOBLE,
Who were born the same day,
Baptised the same day,
Confirmed the same day,
Entered service the same day,
Were married the same day,
And became parents simultaneous.
They died
" They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in
death they were not divided." — 2 SAM, i. 23.
JOHN AND JOAN 3
The cutter of the headstone — "monu
mental engraver " he entitled himself — had
some difficulty with John and Joan over his
work. They were ungrammatical. They
were unreasonable.
As instance of ungrammaticality they
desired to have the sentence run, " Who
icas born the same day," &c.
"'Was,'" observed the sculptor, "is
unusual, to put it mildly ; to put it strongly,
is wrong. ' Was ' is singular."
"But our story is both coorious and
singular."
"You are two individuals, separate per
sonalities, and, therefore, must be spoken of
with a were'''
" We are one," said John. " Scriptur
saith so. They two is one flesh. You
can't go against Scriptur, Mr. Tomkins."
" But you were not married when you
were born, so must be spoken of in the
plural then."
" There's argiment in that," said John,
rubbing his head. " What do'y say to that,
Joan ? Shall we pass it ? Anyhow, we was
lovers from the cradle ; and set down, Mr.
Tomkins, as we was inocculated together."
u You surely are not going to have that
inscribed ? "
4 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" Why not ? It's a terrible coorious story.
Yes, Joan and me was inocculated together.
It was in a drawer of an old cheffonier with
brass mountings. And it wasn't small-pox
at all : it turned out to be chicken-pox
with both of us : that was coorious."
To understand this statement it is ne
cessary to know what the term " inocu
lation" meant among the peasantry of the
West of England till vaccination became
compulsory.
When a child had small-pox, another
child was put into the crib with it, and kept
there till infected with the disorder. If the
crib were too small to accommodate two
infants, then a lower drawer of a chest was
taken and converted into a temporary bed
with blankets and pillows, and the children
were placed therein. That was " inocula
tion." There is hardly an old man or old
woman in the West who was not thus
inoculated in infancy.
" You are surely not going to have this
on your monument ! " again deprecated the
sculptor.
"Why not? It's fack. But, though
'twas chicken-pox, Joan and me got pitted,
each at the top-end of our noses. You
may look and convince yourself."
JOHN AND JOAN 5
After much persuasion and representation
that he was acting against his own interests
in advising an omission, inasmuch as pay
ment was at the rate of twopence per letter,
Mr. Tomkins induced the old couple to
allow him to omit the record of their
inoculation.
" We was married the same day," pro
ceeded John.
" Of course you were," said the monu
mental artist. " You married each other."
" Whom else should we marry ? We
was lovers since we was babies. And we
were both twenty-one to a day. Now that
also was coorious. And our Martha was
born on the twenty-ninth of January, and
so me and Joan became parents the same
day."
" Naturally — she was your child."
" But it was on the same day."
" Surely this is not to go down on the
stone ? "
" Yes, it is. Our story is uncommon
coorious, if you take it all together. But if
you leave out this and you leave out that,
you just spoil the whole thing. You must
take it all or leave it alone."
" It is arrant nonsense/' said the sculptor.
" This comes of lack of education."
6 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" I suppose it does," said John modestly.
" But we be both too old to alter, and I
reckon it be possible to enter Life Eternal
wi'out ABC. We have made up our
minds what is to go on the stone, and we
can pay for it, so have it we will."
" Very well," said the artist, " if that be
the case, you shall have your own way, but
you may tear me with wild horses before I
write that you each have a chicken-pox pit
on the ends of your noses. I'll do the
stone for you, but I forewarn you : I will
not append my name at the bottom of the
monument. I should be ashamed to do
so — to have such nonsense with ( Tomkins '
at the foot."
Then Joan flushed very red, and said,
" We want to have no other name on our
stone. Put John there, and put Joan there,
and nothing else. We was lovely and
pleasant in our lives, and in death we want
no Tomkinses at the foot nor nowhere
about us."
One concession — one further concession
the couple did make. John had desired to
have it recorded on the headstone that he
and his wife became parents the same day,
but Tomkins had pleaded for the word
"simultaneous." Then, after consultation
JOHN AND JOAN 7
with Joan, the point was conceded. " You
see, old woman, we've been down on
Tomkins rather hard; we won't let him
stick his name on our moni'ment, so we'll
just humour him in this particular, and let
him write ' simultaneous ' to ease his
feelings."
In course of time, Martha, the only
child of the Nobles, married, and followed
her husband, a moorman, to his home — a
cottage, or small farm, distant, as the crow
flies and the moorman rides, eight miles,
but by road — the only road — as much as
seventeen.
Martha in turn became a mother, " which
makes it all the more coorious," said John,
" for now Joan and me be grandparents the
same day, or, as Tomkins and the headstone
says, ' simultaneous.' ''
Martha did not recover her strength after
the baby was born. She was unable to
nurse her child, and was not vigorous
enough to both manage her husband's house
and attend to the child. Accordingly her
mother came to her aid, and carried off the
baby. At the time when our story took
place the babe — his name was Frederick
Augustus — was with his grandparents.
DARTMOOR IDYLLS
II
JOHN and Joan occupied a lonely moor
land cottage, or small moor- farm, far from
village and hamlet. To the east rose
heathery ranges of hills two thousand feet
high, crowned with pointed and weathered
granite rocks.
The cottage was built of rude blocks, and
was thatched with heather. The windows
were small, and filled with green bullseye
glass. Around it were fields cleared of
stones for hay, a potato paddock, and
sheds.
The day was Monday, March 9, 1891.
John and Joan were engaged on their
midday meal, with the door open, for the
weather was warm, when they heard a shrill
call.
"There's Whistle-Jack!" said1 Joan;
" whatever can ha' brought him here ? "
"Whistles, I reckon," answered John.
" I'll buy one to amuse the baby."
"Whistles!" exclaimed Joan. "What
be you a-thinking of, John? If you was
JOHN AND JOAN 9
to blow one, it would frighten the child into
fits."
" They cost a penny and no more/' said
John. " But there he be. Come in, Jack
Narracot, and share a bite wi' us : a
mouthful o' potato pie and a mug o'
cider."
The man addressed stood in the doorway.
He was tall, gaunt, halted on one leg, wore
very ragged garments, and whistles were
stuck into every available button-hole, and
under the ribbon of his discoloured hat.
John Narracot, or Whistle- Jack, as he
was called, picked up a livelihood by com
bining many avocations. He made brooms.
He sheared sheep. He trapped moles. He
thatched cottages and ricks. He composed
verses. He was a ratcatcher. He was
credited with being a poacher. Finally, he
made and sold whistles. Broom-cutting
time was in winter. Mole-catching in April.
Shearing time in June. Patent poisons
were exterminating rats. Galvanised iron
roofing was abolishing thatch. The advance
of civilisation was reducing the means of
making a livelihood to Whistle- Jack. Poems
Jack composed at all times of the year and
on all kinds of occasions. No birth,
marriage, burial took place uncommemorated
to DARTMOOR IDYLLS
by him, and he was rewarded for his verses
according to the circumstances of the family
in whose honour the poem was made. But
Board-school education and the Press were
reducing the number of those who cared to
hear the rude compositions of Narracot, and
literature was so cheap that his efforts
no longer met with the remuneration to
which he had been accustomed in former
days.
"I've brought you a letter," said the man
of many trades. "Her's been lying at
Millard Home's these two days. Saturday
they was too busy, Sunday too idle to attend
and send her on. Here she be. I was
passing, so they axed me to take the letter.
No charge for postage, but what you please
to give. And, maybe, you'll buy a whistle
or two."
" I'll have a whistle, certainly," said John.
"Sit down and eat hearty. The letter will
keep. I reckon it's about nothing, and is an
advertisement. Joan and I be no scholars,
and we'll wait till you've eaten. Then you
can read 'n to us."
"We shall have a change of weather,"
said the man, complying with the invitation,
and falling to with an appetite.
" That we shall," said Joan. " The horni-
JOHN AND JOAN 11
winks (peewits) have left the moor. They've
been going by all morning in flocks like
sparrows."
"I know it," said John. "For I was
down by Rediver wood, and the rooks were
tumbling about as if they didn't know their
heads from their tail-feathers."
"I know it by my whistles," observed
Narracot. " They alter their pipe according
as the weather is. When there is rain
coming they're in a sort o' a minor key, and
when the wind is up in north or east and
there'll be dryth, then they sing shrill as
larks."
"There ought to be a change," said John.
" All February we've had summer heat and
sunshine, and I reckon it ain't rooks only as
don't know their heads from their tails. It's
the same wi' the seasons o' the year. They
be all tumbling about like tipsy creeturs."
" I've been compoging poetry concerning
you," said Whistle- Jack, leaning his elbows
on the board.
" Concerning me or Joan ? "
" Concerning both. You've been married
fifty years, and my poem says so. It begins —
' 'Tis fifty years, my old wife Joan,
Tis fifty years to-day,
Since we was wed ' "
12 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"We ha' been married fifty years next
Thursday," said John ; " then Joan and me
will be seventy-one to a day."
" Will you hear the poem now ? "
" No, thank y\ Tisn't true yet. Not till
Thursday. To-day be fifty years short by
three days, and there's no saying what may
hap between this and then. It'd be tempting
Providence. But now, will you be so good
and read us the letter. Joan and me be no
scholars, but us be terrible good listeners."
The letter was from their married daugh
ter, Martha Evea ; and it was as follows —
" DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER BOTH —
"Hopping as it will find you as it
leaves me, bad in my legs as swells up like
illifunts. There ain't been no washing done
this fortnight, which is bad, and ort to be.
I wish mother would come and do the
washing for me. If I fusses about them legs
swells, so dear mother do come, hopping as
it finds you as it leaves me. I hopp the
dear baby is well.
" Your loving dorter,
"MARTHA."
JOHN AND JOAN 13
III
" WHATEVER is to be done ? " asked John.
" I must go at once. It's two weeks'
washing."
"I'd put it off/' advised Whistle- Jack.
"There may be a change o' weather, and
it's seventeen miles to the Eveas'."
" It's eight across the moors," answered
Joan.
"Aye, but I wouldn't chance it wi' a
change coming on."
" There'll be no change afore midnight.
And it's two weeks' washing."
" I can't be sure when the change will be,"
observed Narracot. "Them pipes be
squealin' like little pigs when you've nipped
their tails."
"You said yourself they squealed for a
north or east wind, and with north or east
wind we get dry weather."
" That's true ; but there's a queer change
coming. They squeals wonderful irreg'lar.
Will you hear them ? "
"No, thank y'. It would wake the
baby."
I4 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" I'll buy one of them whistles/' said
John. " Here's a penny."
" Will you ? " said Joan, and she snatched
the purchase out of her husband's hand.
" Not if I can help it. Anyhow you sha'n't
keep the whistle. I'm off to Martha.
Whilst I'm away you must mind the baby,
and pretty noise you'd be making, John,
with the whistle ! scaring the poor mite out
of his senses. I'd come back to find him a
raving idjot."
Joan put the whistle into her pocket.
"It's safest there,'' she said; "and so I
shall be easy in mind that John bain't play
ing no anticks on it."
"But you're not going now to the
Eveas' ? " asked Narracot.
"Yes, I be," replied Joan. "When a
daughter calls — and has a fortnight's wash
ing — a mother answers."
" It's a rough road over the moor."
" It's no road at all, but so long as there's
daylight I can find my way. The moors be
middling dry. The bogs are shrumped up.
The rivers without water. If I start at once,
I shall be at Martha's by nightfall, and
begin the washing early to-morrow."
" I don't half like it," said John. « It's
dangerous in the Cleave."
JOHN AND JOAN 15
"Pshaw!" said Joan. "I know the
Cleave. I have a foot as firm as yours,
John, and a head as cool and an eye as
clear. Was we not born the same day and
inocculated together ? "
" I'll come with you."
" You can't. You must attend to the
baby."
" I dare say Whistle- Jack would do that."
" Whistle- Jack," said the wife, "he ain't
competent. He's never been a married man
nor a nussin' father."
" If you will go," said John, " then take
one of our cured hams for Martha, and a
bottle of our own metheglin. The metheglin
is strong as brandy four years old, and sweet
as the furze- bloom from which the bees draw
their honey. Martha '11 come round, and
the swellin' go down in her legs, on our ham
and metheglin."
" I'll do that, but it's a good deal to carry."
" It will be worth it," said John, " and I
dare say Whistle-Jack will carry 'em part
way."
" I'd rather carry it myself and go my own
way. Jack's a bit of a cripple. I'm lusty
and strong, though Thursday I be seventy-
one, I feel like a girl o' sixteen."
" And you'll be back on Thursday ? "
1 6 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"I'll be sure to be that, even if I have to
go again."
" Yes/' said Narracot, " you'll mind to be
home, for I shall come again on Thursday,
and recite to you that poem o' mine I have
compoged on your fifty years of married life.
It begins —
* 'Tis fifty years, my old wife Joan,
'Tis fifty years to-day.' "
" I'll hear it on Thursday. I've no time
for it now, if I'm to be at the Eveas' by
nightfall."
Then the old woman began to make pre
parations for departure. She wrapped in a
bundle certain garments, also simples for
Martha's legs, to reduce swelling, the ham,
and the bottle of metheglin, than which no
cordial made by Carthusians in the Dauphine
Alps could be more effective. Next she
summoned her husband to consultation over
the baby's cradle.
"Now mind," said Joan, "I trust Fred
erick Augustus to you. If harm comes on
him, I'll never kiss you again."
"You don't think you could carry him
along with you?" suggested the old man.
" You see, the minding o' babies don't come
so nat'ral to men as it does to females."
JOHN AND JOAN 17
" See how selfish these men are ! " ex
claimed Joan, appealing to the whistle-man.
" As if it were not enough to have to carry a
ham and a bottle o' metheglin, but he wants
me to take the baby as well, so as to leave him
to get into mischief, having nothing to do."
" I'll do my best," said John, humbly,
" but it don't come nat'ral."
" If I leave the baby with you," said the
old woman, " you must learn how to feed it.
First of all, mind this : two parts water and
one milk."
"Yes," said John, tapping his forehead.
" But it seems more reasonable two parts
milk and one water. Then he needn't take
in such a terrible lot — but I reckon it
prolongs enjiment."
"You must not think, you must obey,"
said Joan. " You'd derange the baby with
two of milk. Mind this : one part milk,
and the bottle must be scalded out twice
a day."
"Why scalded?"
"To keep the bottle sweet. And if the
indian-rubber tube happen to choke, you
must blow through it and clean it with a
straw."
"Yes; but how'm I to know if it's
choked ? "
i8 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"You must look at the bottle when
Frederick Augustus is sacking, and you'll
see by the commotion within. If the liquid
be still — it's choked. Then he must be fed
four times in the night with a spoon.
You're such a gashly hard sleeper, John ! "
" I fear I be ; but he'll make me wake up,
I reckon — he roars like a bull o' Bashan."
"And if he has stomach-ache you'll re
member to give him dill-water."
" But how'm I to know if he's got stomach
ache?"
" By the way he draws up his little knees
and feet."
a Yes, I'll mind that. When he draws up
his little knees and feet I'll give him dill-
water."
" And if he's fractious, you'll sing to him ;
but none of your Rory-Tory tunes."
« No— I'll try not."
" Sing something soothing — a hymn or a
lullabye,
* My baby clings as close to me
As doth the bark unto the tree.' "
" Til try what I can," said John dubiously.
" And if he is after teeth, you rub his gums."
"Yes, I'll rub his gums. But how'm I
to know he is after teeth ? "
JOHN AND JOAN 19
" By his dribbling, of course,"
"By his dribbling? I understand."
" Rub with your little finger dipped in
the mixture, which is saffron and alum and
honey. Don't use your other fingers,
John : they are like horn, and you'd take
the skin off his blessed gums."
"Yes, I'll mind," said John, and he
tapped his forehead. " There's two parts
water and one milk. There's scalding out
the bottle. There's cleaning the tube.
There's dill-water when he draws up his
knees and feet There's no Rory-Tory
tunes, and feeding him four times in the
night with a spoon. And there's rubbing
his gums with the mixture. That's just
seven things, like the seven days in the
week, and the seven stars in the firmament.
I'll mind 'em all. These be, I reckon, the
seven great maxims and golden laws o'
nussin'. Give my love to Martha, and I
hope she'll relish the ham and the metheglin,
and the swellin' '11 go down. Mind, old
woman, you be back by Thursday, which is
our fiftieth anniversary and jubilee."
20 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
IV
JOAN had been gone somewhat over half-
an-hour, and John had the baby out of the
cradle, and was blowing through the tube,
and converting the milk in the bottle into a
foam of bubbles great and small, so as to
assure himself that the passage was free,
when a rush of wind swept past the house so
suddenly that John dropped the bottle, and
it would have been broken had it fallen on
the floor and not into the cradle. The first
rush was succeeded by stillness for a minute,
and then the wind came down with a roar
that was deafening, and with a violence that
filled the room with smoke and flame from
the hearth and chimney.
" My crikums ! " exclaimed the old man.
" Whatever will Joan do ? "
He took the feeding-bottle out of the
crib, replaced the infant, and went to the
door.
A change had come over the sky. The
moor rose as a wall to the east ; and above
it dense masses of vapour curled like waves
JOHN AND JOAN 21
over a reef. The sky in that quarter was
black as ink, solid as lead. A single plover,
the underwings white against the gloomy
cloud, was flying west as though life
depended on its speed. Frightened sheep
had taken refuge under the walls on the lee
side, round the little farm, and cowered
there motionless, forgetting even to eat.
Then the snow began to fall, in large fleeces
at first, sailing before the wind with a
certain leisureliness. Next they drove in
smaller flakes, and in white parallel lines.
Then all at once the whole atmosphere was
converted into a boil of white particles,
spinning, tossing in every possible direction,
and nothing was visible beyond a couple of
yards from the door, not even the shed
opposite.
The babe began to scream. John was
constrained to leave the door, and run back
to it.
" Whatever is to be done ? " he asked, as
his heart quivered with fear. "There's my
dear old woman on the moor, and here's this
blessed baby in the house. I can't go after
her. I can't leave him. I am drawn this
way, I am pulled that. I wish to Heaven
Whistle- Jack had remained."
He dipped his little finger in the mixture
22 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
of alum, saffron, and honey, and rubbed the
babe's gums with it, whilst his eyes were on
the window, and watched the swirl of snow-
dust through it.
" However will my Joan find her way ? "
he groaned.
The window-panes became plastered, and
by degrees, the light obscured, it was as
though whitewash were being laid over the
glass, coat on coat.
" What is it now ? " asked the old man,
as the child went into a paroxysm of
screams. " Is it stomick ? Ah — them little
legs is drawed up. Do be still whilst I go
after the dill-water. Lor* ! how selfish these
babies be ; they don't think of nothing but
themselves, and there's my Joan out on the
moor and I don't know whereabout she be
and what she's doing/'
The snow was heaping itself on the thres
hold, it was piling on the window-ledges ;
it was settling down behind hedges, over
which it blew like sea-foam. It massed
itself on thorn-bushes, then fell off in white
avalanches. It accumulated on roofs till
its weight forced it to slide down and thud
upon the soil, and make room for fresh
accumulations. It beat into John's face,
and blinded him when he opened the door.
JOHN AND JOAN 23
and fell in over the threshold and bespattered
the floor. The wind drove so hard into his
mouth that he turned gasping, as though he
had been under water.
" Whatever has become of Joan ? " he
exclaimed, with a gulp and sob. " I cannot
leave her on the moors in this storm. She'll
never make her way to the Eveas' in the
teeth of the wind and the drive of the snow.
I'll get my hat and stick and go seek her."
Then the babe began to cry.
" What is it now — gums or gripe ? or is
it bottle you want? I cannot leave you
alone in the cottage, and I cannot let Joan
lose herself on the moor ? Whatever shall
I do? I'm torn in shreds like a ragged
robin. Come now, I'll sing y' to sleep, and
then I can go out and seek Joan high and
low."
The old man took the child in his arms,
and seating himself on a chair, proceeded
to swing himself vigorously, bawling in a
cracked voice —
"Three jolly boys are we,
Ri-too-ral-loo. Ri-too-ral-lido."
The child continued crying.
" O crikums ! " exclaimed John, " my
Joan said I wasn't to sing no Rory-Tory
tunes, but only psalms and spirituous songs.
24 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
Dratted if I can remember any now. Let's
have a look if his knees and toes be drawed
up. If so, it's stomick. Let's look at his
little chin. If that's running over, it's teeth
he's after. Lor' ! I wish I'd got that whistle
I paid a penny for. Joan may say what
she likes, but in such a howling wind the
whistle would be most suitable, and nothing
else could be heard as would send Frederick
Augustus to sleep. But Joan put the
whistle in her pocket and took it away.
O dear ! O dear ! I wish I knowed two
things : one where my Joan is, and t'other,
how to pacify the baby."
After having swung his body to and fro
like a pendulum for a quarter of an hour,
without results adequate to the muscular
effort, John put the child into the cradle,
and applying his foot to the rocker, made
the crib roll like the packet between Dover
and Calais, for a second quarter of an hour.
All the while his mind was in a tumult of
concern for his wife, and in perplexity as to
what was to be done for her. The child
seemed to share in his distress. It would
not be comforted.
" I believe it's just this/' said the old man,
looking distractedly at the crying babe.
" Frederick Augustus is stuffed in his head,
JOHN AND JOAN 25
and can't breathe thro' his nose; that
troubles him. I'll rub his nose up and
down wi' a warm tallow candle, and 'twill
ease him wonderful. And if it's on the
chest, then there's somewhere the fellow of
the sheet of brown paper as wrapped up the
ham. I'll just drip mutton fat over it, and
cut a couple of holes for the baby's arms, and
wrap it round his back and chest. There
ain't the equal to tallow and brown paper for
a plaster. It beats embrocation. Lawk ! "
exclaimed John in sudden terror, " I wonder
whether I gave the creetur saffron and alum
instead o' dill-water. I'm that muddled in
my head I can't think what I'm about.
But if I did, then for certain there'll be
terrible trouble in his insides, but the
wind be that roaring about the roof and
whistling at the door, and screaming in at
the chimly-tops, I can't hear if I listen. I
do wish it 'ud calm down about. I can't
hear nothing distinct as to what's going on
in his insides. O dear! what will Joan say
if I have? I must look at his poor little
legs again and see if they be drawed up. If
they be, then for sure he's swallowed the
alum, and I've rubbed his gums wi' dill-
water."
However, to John's relief, the child fell
26 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
asleep. Then the old man leaned his elbow
on his knee, and fell into dream, looking
down on the cradle. That was the cradle
in which he had lain as a child. There he
had sobbed and laughed in his infantile
sorrows and joys. In that cradle his Martha
had lain — the child that had made him and
Joan to be parents "simultaneous," as the
headstone stated. Now the third genera
tion occupied it.
" O crikums ! " groaned the man, raising
his head at a fresh burst of wind that raved
over and around the house. "Whatever
can have become of my old woman ? She
can never have reached beyond the Cleave.
And if the snow came on when she was
there " He got up and walked to and
fro in the room, and a choke came in his
voice. The babe in the cradle sobbed in
sleep, as in sympathy. "We was so lovely
and pleasant in our lives — and if aught
happens to she — and in death we was to be
divided — it 'ud spoil the whole cooriousness
of our story. There's the baby at it again."
JOHN AND JOAN 27
THE night set in early without any
cessation of storm. Throughout the hours
of darkness the wind blew and the snow fell.
John had milked the cow and had given
her hay. He had brought in turf and sticks
for the hearth. He had listened in the hopes
of hearing his wife's voice, and in imagination
had believed momentarily that it was borne
to him on the wind. He went out in the
night as far as he dared go, but was com
pelled to return lest he should lose his direc
tion and be unable to find his way back.
Not a wink of sleep did John have that
night. He did not attempt to undress and
go to bed. He sat by the fire or wandered
restlessly about the house. He asked him
self a thousand times whether it was possible
that his wife could have battled her way
through to the Eveas' cottage, and, though
he hoped against hope, he was obliged to
allow that this was hardly possible. Then
where was she? There was no habitation
on the moors between his little farm and that
28 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
of the Eveas. There was not a cattle-shed,
not a hedge, not a tree — no shelter of any
sort save that afforded by granite tors.
If Joan had seen the storm coming on
when she reached the top of the range, why
had she not retraced her steps ? What could
have induced her to push on when that wall
of blackness stood up before her eyes. " I
know," said John : " it was that darned fort
night's washing. She'd walk into a cannon's
mouth, into the very jaws of hell, rather
than let things go dirty a third week."
If Joan had gone on, had she stumbled in
the snow — sunk in ? and did she now lie
under it ? Tears trickled down the old man's
cheeks. He drew his stool over to the
headstone and passed his finger along each
line of the inscription. What each letter
signified he did not know, but he was well
acquainted with what each group of symbols
signified.
The day dawned. John had hoped that
with light cessation of storm would have
come. But there was none. He trusted
that at noon the wind would abate and the
fall of snow cease. There was no sensible
abatement. Surely there would be calm
and clear weather at sunset. That hope
also proved vain. In dismay he saw how
JOHN AND JOAN 29
that the snow was accumulating to a con
siderable height. The night closed in — a
night in all particulars like that which pre
ceded it. John was as little inclined for bed
as the night before.
The child was restless. John went to it.
"Joan said I was to feed him four times
in the night ; but how can one keep count
when thus wurreted wi' maddening thoughts
and dreadful fears ? I reckon it's more like
a hundred and forty-four times I've spoon
fed him. Then there's the bottle comes
intermediate. Coming, coming, my 'an-
some ! "
And John ran to the cradle.
When the child lay still in sleep John's
terrors were increased. He thought it was
in a fit. He feared it was dying, and he
roused it that he might satisfy himself that
his doubt and alarm were vain.
" My goodness ! O crikums ! " exclaimed
the old fellow. " I seem to be never endin'
fillin' the bottle and making spoon-food. I
do believe that Frederick Augustus has had
as much as would fill the boiler. I'll just
weigh the one against the other ; and there's
a bushel o' potatoes, bacon, and turnips in
the boiler."
He removed the iron cauldron from the
30 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
crook with one hand, and raised the child
from the cradle with the other, and gave a
sigh of relief.
"Frederick Augustus is a tiny bit the
lighter of the two/' he said. " I shouldn't
ha7 thought it."
During the forenoon of Wednesday, the
nth, the violence of the wind abated, and
for a while the snow ceased. The sky was
overcast — it seemed compacted of grey wool.
John Noble, standing at his door, looked
east, and saw the moor white as a sheet
half-way up the heavens. Every bush was
covered, every rock buried, saving only at
the edge of the crest, where the crags were
too precipitous for snow to lodge upon
them. Where could Joan be ? What had
befallen her? With maddening iteration
the same thoughts and queries rose in his
mind. Oh that some one would come to
him from the nearest farm who for a while
would take charge of the child whilst he went
in search of his wife !
" If I could get rid o' that creetur in there,"
said John, pointing with his thumb over his
shoulder at the cradle, "I'd walk till I found
her or dropped. I daren't take the baby
out in this bitter cold and rough weather,
choked in the head as he be in spite of all
JOHN AND JOAN 31
the tallering I gave his nose. Yaw ! " He
turned his head towards the sleeping child.
" You may call yourself Frederick Augustus,
but I say you're a spotted toad, and a
nuisance. If you weren't my own grand
child I'd leave you, and go forth and look
for Joan."
He went to the crib, took the babe out,
and danced it on his knee, singing in
dolorous tones —
" There were three drunken maidens
Came from the Isle of Wight.
They drank from Monday morning,
They drank till Saturday night."
Then he stopped, for the " tick-tack, tick-
tack " of the clock had suddenly ceased.
What was the signification of the clock
stopping ?
It had not intermitted its ticking since
he and Joan had occupied that house.
He went to the clock-case with a dread of
ill-omen on his heart, and there found that
the clock had stopped because the weight
had run down — it had run down because
not wound up as usual by Joan on Monday
evening. Joan's mind followed his wife on
the way she had taken on the afternoon
she left him. She had gone due east, with
Hare Tor before her, and had bent to the
32 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
left to avoid the " Old Men's Washings," a
gully where, in ancient times, tinners had
streamed for metal. She would, after a
while, have reached the " leat," a stream of
water conveyed for many miles along the
hill-sides to supply a distant mine. An
upright granite block indicated the spot
where slabs had been cast across the stream
to serve as a bridge for men and cattle.
Joan assuredly had gone further than that.
Had she crossed the neck between Hare
Tor and Ger Tor ? If so, then she would
strike over open down unencumbered with
rocks till she reached the Cleave, down
which roared and foamed the river Tavy.
There it was that most of the danger lay.
The descent was precipitous, among rocks
tossed in confusion from the heights, their
interstices at all time concealed by heather
and whortleberry bushes. Supposing she
had reached the bottom of the ravine
she would have to cross the river on the
stepping-stones. Could she have done that
before the storm came on ? Could she
have discovered the stepping-stones in the
blinding snow? If she found them, could
she have crossed the raging torrent on them
without slipping and being swept away ?
And even supposing she had reached the
JOHN AND JOAN 33
further bank, then her difficulties would not
have been at an end, her peril would have
become the greater, for beyond was open
moor, with hardly a landmark, only to be
traversed by such as were intimately ac
quainted with the way, and by them only
in clear daylight, and when the direction
was unmistakable. If she had gone from
her course there, God help her! even her
body might never be found in that vast,
trackless desert, where even animal, bird,
and insect life fails. With these thoughts
John tortured himself all the afternoon, and
could find no rest.
All at once the door of the house opened,
and in blew a cloud of snow-dust. The
storm had arisen again, and this time, after
a lull of twelve hours, with redoubled fury.
The house reeled under the weight of the
blast that blew the snow from the thatch
like a cloud of steam. On the former days
flakes had fallen, sometimes large, at others
small. Now an impalpable powder of snow,
minute as finest wheat-flour, was impelled
before a wind that had the force and fury of
a torrent.
" It's the end o' the world comin'," said
John, "and but for Frederick Augustus,
who ain't yet seen a menagerie, I'd be glad
34 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
if it were so, for then Joan and me 'ud not
run risk o' being divided."
That was the night of the great blizzard
in the West of England, a night never to be
forgotten by such as passed through it; a
night that saw forests of oaks laid low, torn
up by the roots on which they had stood
for three hundred years, pines twisted and
their heads wrenched off, houses buried to
their chimney- tops, roofs blown away, roads
obliterated. That was the night to which
the two previous nights had been but a
preparation and a prelude.
VI
ON the morning of Thursday the I2th
the wind subsided as suddenly as it had
risen ; and when the sun rose it was in a
cloudless sky. Not a breath of wind stirred,
and the air was warm as on a summer day,
yet the aspect of the country was polar.
The condition of the snow had been
completely changed by the final gale. On
Tuesday and on Wednesday the entire
JOHN AND JOAN 35
surface of the land had been covered with
an all-enveloping white mantle, but the
subsequent hurricane had swept the hills as
with a besom, and had swept the snow into
every valley, hollow, and corner. Roads
were choked level with the hedgerows, the
rocks that had fronted the storm had
inclined planes of snow from behind to their
summits. Houses that lay athwart the blast
were in like manner buried to their roof
tops on the lee side, whereas every particle
of snow was brushed from before and from
behind such houses as stood parallel with
the path of the wind. The face of the
country was mottled. Here it was clear,
there covered with drifts — and such drifts!
the snow, moreover, was so soft that to
traverse it was impossible. Men sank in it as
in egg-flummery. It had to be cut through,
it could not be walked over. Progress from
place to place was accomplished solely by
circumventing the vast accumulations.
John was standing in his doorway as the
sun rose over the serrated ridge, and his
eyes were dazzled at the brilliance with
which its rays illumined the snow-fields
around. Then he heard voices, and in
another moment Whistle- Jack and three
farm labourers from the nearest settlement
36 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
stood before him ; he knew them all : they
were Philip Lang, Matthew Grossman, and
Tom Down.
" I have come," said Narracot ; "I thought
it my duty, as I sent her off wi' the news
in that letter. I was terrible anxious all
through the storm, but till to-day I couldn't
get out to you. Is Joan returned ? "
" Joan returned ? No ! "
"And she has never got to the Eveas*.
I've seed a man as was caught by the storm
when coming over the moor on the road,
and he stayed at Evea's, Monday and
Tuesday night. He managed somehow to
get along Wednesday, but was nigh spent
by doing it."
" And Joan ? " — the old man trembled.
"She had not arrived. I hoped she'd
managed to get back to you/'
" My wife ! my wife ! " cried the old
man. Then, running into the cottage, he
wrapped the baby in a blanket, knotted the
blanket and looped it over his neck, and
brought the child out. " Come, Frederick
Augustus ! " said he, " we must go and
look for your grandmother. God cannot
have forsaken her ! God cannot have
forgotten me ! " The child was frightened
at the sight of so many strange faces, and
JOHN AND JOAN 37
sobbed incessantly. But the old man dis
regarded its terrors, and insisted on going
forth over the moor in quest of his lost Joan,
and in carrying the child whilst doing so.
The party ascended the slope, picking its
way slowly along, winding in and out among
the sheets of treacherous snow that covered
old mine-pits or concealed the chasms be
tween blocks of granite. John knew every
inch of the way, disguised, transformed
though it was. He saw the granite post,
standing, like Lot's wife, a pillar, not indeed
of salt, but of snow, that indicated the
passage of the "leat." The watercourse
was arched over with snow, the stream was
invisible, and but for the upright stone the
party might have missed the bridge and
floundered into the water.
" Mind where you go ! " said John.
"That great rock there — we call it the
Frog ; but it doesn't look like a frog now,
so buried is it in snow. That must be kept
to the left. There's a quaking bog nigh on
it to be avoided. You can't see the bog for
the snow that lies over it."
" Hark ! " said one of the men, " what
bird is that ? "
They heard a strange note.
" Is it a crane ? "
38 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" We ain't here looking for birds, or
listening to their voices/' said John testily.
"We are hunting for my old Joan. The
Lord be merciful to her and to me ! She's
not at the Eveas', she's not come home.
Wherever can she be ? "
"Hark! I hear that bird again," said
Whistle-Jack.
" It isn't a crane, I reckon it's a curlew."
The party pressed on. One man offered
to carry the child, but John refused.
"I'm given the charge of Frederick
Augustus," said he. " If we come on my
old woman, she won't be pleased to see any
one carry him but me, to whom the child
was confided."
After they had left the Frog Rock a rifle
shot off on their left, they came on a dip in
the moor where were rushes that had caught
the drifting snow. The soil was spongy,
the snow light as sea-foam, and advance
was slow and infinitely laborious. Then
suddenly they emerged on land swept clean
of snow, and here they pushed forward
lustily.
In half-an-hour the crest of the moorland
and its serrated crag was passed, and the
course lay due east over a slightly undulating
surface almost wholly devoid of stones, and
JOHN AND JOAN 39
where no snow lay. Then suddenly they
came out on the "Cleave," a gorge three
hundred feet deep, fringed with rocks, and
almost as precipitous as the walls of a house.
At the bottom was wont to rush a brawling
river, and its roar was usually audible from
the Cleave edge. But on this day all was
silent. The chasm was choked with a vast
accumulation of snow as far up as the eye
could reach, the snow lay smooth as a sheet,
and beyond it rose the brown moor. The
blizzard had brushed the uplands and had
flung its covering into the ravine, filling it
to the height of nearly three hundred feet.
John stood up as one stupefied. He put his
hands to his head, his knees shook under
him.
"The Lord has spread His sheet over
her " he said.
That Joan could have crossed the ravine
before the snowstorm came on was not
possible. In it she must have perished,
and over her the Lord had heaped His
snow !
Silent, with bowed head, and the briny
tears running down his cheeks, John walked
homeward. The child slept the greater part
of the way. When it awoke, then Whistle-
Jack, without a word, relieved him of the
40 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
burden, and carried the babe in his arms the
rest of the way. Old John made no protest,
his head was stunned.
Presently Whistle- Jack said, " Hush !
There's that coorious note again. I wonder
what bird it can be."
" Aye, and we hears it in much the same
place. Whatever bird it be, her's piping
somewhere about the Frog Rock."
The old man, stumbling on without eyes
for where he was going, ears for aught said,
stepped unawares into a drift and sank to his
waist in snow. He made no effort to ex
tricate himself, and it took those who were
of the search-party some time before they
could draw him forth. He was exhausted
with his walk, with carrying the child, with
the difficulties of the way, but most of all
through the extinction in his heart of the
hope that had heretofore stimulated his
efforts.
"I can't go on," said he. "Leave me
here."
His knees shook and gave way under
him.
"Nonsense, man; come along. You
have but a couple of miles to go, and you
are home."
"I've no home more — Joan bean't there."
JOHN AND JOAN 41
" Make an attempt," said one man.
" Here, take my stick, or, if you like, lean
on me."
John staggered forwards, then sank on
the ground.
"It's no good trying," said he. "I'm
done for. The Lord has buried her, so
leave Him to do the same wi' me."
" There's that queer bird singing again,"
said another man.
"It's the death-piper," said John. "I
reckon he cried seven times over my Joan
before she fell asleep in the snow, and her
soul went flying off in the storm. It's come
and is calling me."
" Nonsense, man."
" I hope it be," said John, sinking together
in a condition of mental and bodily collapse.
" We was lovely and pleasant in our lives,
and it's right as in death we should not be
divided."
Whistle-Jack put his hands under the
arms of the old man and endeavoured to
raise him, but it seemed as though the
power to sustain himself on his feet had
gone from him.
" Tom Down, give him a drop o' brandy.
He's failing/'
"Tom Down is gone," answered another
42 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
man. " He's so tremendious coorious about
that there bird as be whistling at the Frog
Rock, he's gone to see what it be."
"And has carried off the brandy. Run
after him."
Then Whistle-Jack put the sleeping child
in the old man's lap.
"Look here, John," said he, "you must
not give up because youVe lost your old
woman. There's the young one to be
cared for."
John did not raise his head ; he slightly
shook it.
"There's your daughter you must con
sider."
" Her's got her husband, and I've lost my
old wife. I reckon if the Lord's took her
He'll be so good as to kindly take me. Us
can never get on in this world or the next
wi'out each other." He settled himself
deeper into the snow. "Whatever '11 Joan
do when her comes to glory and finds I'm
not there ? It's no good you talking ; where
she is there I must be. Us never was parted,
and next Thursday "
" It is Thursday to-day, John."
"Well, to-day us be fifty years married.
I hope the Lord '11 remember that, and take
me at once."
JOHN AND JOAN 43
" We shall have to carry him," said Jack.
" She'll be just as lost in glory wi'out me as
I be here on earth wi'out her/' muttered the
old man. He shook his head. He folded
his hands over the baby in the blanket.
" She'll be wandering about among saints
and angels, and axing where the dickens be
her old John. I know she will. She'll be
in a regular wurrit till I be there."
"Let us help you along," said Whistle-
Jack. " Here, Mat Grossman, lend an arm
and lift him."
" I want nought but to be left alone," said
the old man. "You may take the baby
and carry him to the Eveas', to whom it
belongs. I can't mind it no longer. I'm
going to my Joan."
" Where is Philip Lang ? " asked Jack.
" He's gone after Down to get the brandy
for the old chap."
" I wants no brandy,'' said John Noble ;
" I shall drink o' the Water o' Life along
wi' my Joan shortly. All I axes is to be
let alone."
What was to be done with the old fellow ?
Jack and Matthew looked at each other in
perplexity. They might insist on carrying
him the two miles that intervened, but it
was clear he would resist. A stolid, obstinate
44 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
fit had come upon him. His reason no
longer acted. He had lost all desire for life.
Though he would not actively take measures
to destroy himself, he would, if left, remain
where he was, lay his old grey head in the
snow, fold his hands under it, and compose
himself for the long sleep of death, in perfect
satisfaction that he was about to rejoin the
dear partner of his life.
The two men were aware that the kindest
thing they could do to John was to leave
him where he was, to pass away out of an
existence in which was nothing that could
please him ; yet they could not in conscience
suffer him thus to die; they must use
violence, if need be, to prolong the old
man's remnant of life.
" Now look here, John," said Mat Cross-
man. " This ain't manly to give up as you
be doin'. Try to pluck yourself together,
hold up your head and straighten your legs,
and come along with us. We won't leave
you alone in your cottage ; and you're a
young man yet and may look out for another
missus. I knowed old Jonathan Ball as went
a-courting when he was past seventy-eight ;
he pulled on his Sunday coat and brushed
up his hair, and put a sparkle in his eye —
and was quite a boy again."
JOHN AND JOAN 45
The inducement failed to rouse old John.
"There's Jesse Venner," pursued Mat,
" wi' cheeks as red as bloom and a languish
ing eye. She's a fine strapping young
woman — put a yaller rose in your button
hole and go a-courting o' her. No ! Well,
then, there's Lizzy Penrose. Her's got
money, they say — and that will make you
rare comfortable in your old days."
" Get away from me," said John angrily.
" I don't want to hear none o' your wicked
words. I want to go to my Joan. Will y'
leave me now in peace ? I wants to com-
poge my mind for meeting of her."
" Have done wi' your drashy talk ! " said
Whistle- Jack, turning with mock-indignation
on Matthew Grossman. " Don't y' know
that John Noble will never marry again ?
What John wants ain't languishing eyes
and rosy cheeks; I know what he wants.
Get up, John, and come wi' me. I'll do you
a rasher o' bacon and ingeons, John ! —
ingeons as smell the whole house, and is
burnt a lovely brown like tobacker; and
I'll brew you some cider posset, biling
hot, with sugar and nutmeg, and just a
touch o' ginger. I'll make y' sleep like a
baby. Give me your hand and get up and
come along."
46 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
But the prospect of burnt onions and
cider posset had no charms for the old
man.
Then suddenly there rang in their ears,
shrill and loud, the same mysterious note
they had heard before. Mat and Jack looked
round in the direction of the Frog Rock,
and uttered an exclamation.
"John!" cried Whistle - Jack, "man,
stand up and see the loving-kindness o'
Heaven."
The old man obeyed, staggering labor
iously to his feet, with the baby slung in its
blanket round his neck.
" John ! "
Then suddenly, with a cry, " Joan ! "
The old woman stood before him as
hearty as when she left his door.
"John, old man!"
" Joan, old woman ! "
"John ! I've been buried three days."
" Joan ! and I've been nussin' three
days."
" John, when the storm came on I took
shelter under the Frog, and the snow came
on and buried me there. But I had the
ham and the metheglin, and I did famously.
And there was a hole in the rock that wasn't
stopped up wi' snow — so I knocked out the
JOHN AND JOAN 47
bottom o' the bottle, and I stuck the whistle
you bought o' Jack in the mouth, and it
made a tremenjous row it did — like a trumpet,
and I stuck that through the hole, and
every now and then I blew. I thought I
might call attention."
" Shall we carry you home, John ? " asked
Philip Lang.
" Lord ! Carry me ! I'll lean on Joan,
and Joan on me, and we'll walk along right
enough. We was lovely and pleasant in our
lives Go on, you fellows, and we'll
come along right enough in the rear, and
carry the baby between us."
" Oh, John," said the old woman, " I've
been that worreted under the snow, thinking
of the fortnight's washing."
# ^ # * *
When the party had reached the cottage,
thin rashers of ham, with onions, were quickly
fried, two bottles of metheglin were pro
duced ; likewise a posset of cider was
brewed, and the whole party sat down to be
merry and glad over the deliverance of
Joan, the recovery of John, the well-being
of Frederick Augustus, and the commemor
ation of the fiftieth anniversary of the
marriage of the old couple.
" And now," said Whistle- Jack, " maybe
48 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
you'll hear my song as I compoged for this
very occasion."
He cleared his throat, and half said, half
sang—
" Tis fifty years, my old wife Joan,
'Tis fifty years to-day,
Since we was wed — an age agone,
Swift slips the time away.
The bells did ring, the thrushes sing,
Upon our wedding-day.
" You was so peart and purty, Joan,
As wild rose you was fair,
The sun in richer glory shone
When shining in your hair.
The sky was bright, ablaze with light,
And balmy breathed the air."
" You was so spruce, you was, man John,
No lad around so neat.
You almost danced as you went on,
So tripping was your feet.
Your face it shone just like the sun,
Your song was blithe and sweet."
" You wore a gown as white as snow,
Wi' sprigs of flowers, I mind.
A silken sash, a cherry bow
Was tied your waist behind.
A ribbon rare it bound your hair
And fluttered in the wind."
" You wore a coat o' bottle-green
And buttons burnish' d brass,
Your waistcoat was of velveteen,
Your boots they shone as glass.
With such a beau all maids, I trow,
Thought me a lucky lass."
JOHN AND JOAN 49
" We now be grown so old and weak,
Our time is short below,
And when it please the Lord to speak,
Prepared are we to go,
All hand in hand, to the bless'd land
Where days no darkness know.
" And when we stand before the throne
O' Him above that be,
We'll say—' Here come old John and Joan,
No truer hearts than we.
'Tweren't heaven alone without my Joan,
We must together be.' "
" Yes," said the old man, " I reckon that's
all right enough, but, Joan — we'll have it on
the monument."
« What, John ? "
" Well, ours be for certain a most coorious
story. You was buried in the snow three
days, and I nussin' a baby three days — and
both of us survived the operation — the same
day — simultaneous."
DANIEL JACOBS
AN old man with white hair, an intelligent
face, finely cut features, and lustrous dark
eyes ; dressed in discarded garments of other
folk that fitted him in no way, a cripple, with
distorted leg, and a green baize bag under
his arm.
Coat and trousers are like Joseph's gar
ment, of divers colours ; not that they were
so originally, but have so become by spill-
ings of ale, by the stain of peat water, by
patching of incongruous stuff, by mendings
with unsuitable thread.
Daniel Jacobs is a homeless man. He
possesses not a hearth at which he can kindle
his fire, nor a handful of thatch to cover his
white head. He is wifeless, childless, utterly,
hopelessly alone in this rough world. Is —
do I say? Was — he has passed away.
But as I write these words concerning him,
the figure of the man with a wasted life and
51
52 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
forlorn old age rises up so vividly before my
mind's eye, that he seems to me to be still
present, very real, and not a memory.
The face of Daniel Jacobs is not to be
forgotten, with its aquiline nose, delicately
moulded fine lips, and wondrous eyes.
Daniel's face, pleasant enough in repose,
may then call up the wish that a little more
soap and water had been applied, a little bit
of razor addressed to the jaws and chin, a
little combing to the hair, that charity would
bestow on him a little more and warmer
clothing, clothing that, at least, is cleaner.
But when Daniel pulls forth his old violin,
as shabby as himself, places it under his
chin, and draws his bow across the strings,
then every defect is forgotten in the study
of his eyes.
A far-off look comes into them. You
speak to him ; he does not hear you. He is
away in spirit in the music world, seeking
out some old country dance tune, or some
minor ballad air.
Presently Daniel's eye lightens, as though
the sun has shone into it, a smile breaks out
on the worn features of the white face, and
he rapidly fiddles the tune that he has found.
Then — it is of no use attempting to speak.
He neither sees, nor hears, nor feels anything,
DANIEL JACOBS 53
he is wrapped up in his cloud of music,
carried off in a whirlwind of harmonious
sound — like Elijah transported heavenward
in the chariot of fire.
Fine strung, sensitive to a touch, is the
soul of Daniel — again I write of the man as
though he were before me. I cannot other
wise, so strongly has his personality impressed
me.
I met him first in a garden. A lady had
asked him to come and meet me, and play
me some of his old-world music. He came,
and sat himself down under a syringa bush.
As it happened, there were afternoon callers
— several ladies and children, and when told
that he was fiddling, they came into the
garden to see and hear Daniel.
As it happened, a little dog jumped about
plucking at the sash worn by a young girl,
and she laughed aloud. At once a shiver
passed through Daniel, a look of distress came
into his face, and he attempted to creep away.
" Why are you going, Daniel ? "
"Please — I know I'm an old man and
ridiculous — I thought the ladies had had
enough o' me."
He did not half believe it when assured
that the laugh concerned the dog, and not
himself,
54 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
There is a song that was composed about
the time of the death of General Wolfe, 1 759 ;
it begins thus —
" Bold General Wolfe to his men did say,
Come, lads, and follow me without delay,
To yonder mountain that is so high;
Don't be downhearted, but gain the victory.
" There stand the French on the summit high,
While we poor lads in the valley lie ;
I see them falling, as motes in the sun,
Through smoke and fire, all from the British gun."
It concludes with —
"When to Old England you do return,
Tell all my friends I am dead and gone ;
And bid my mother, so kind and dear,
No tears to shed for me, a hero's grave awaits me
here."
Both rhyme and metre are faulty, but there
is a certain pathos in the words, and a great
deal in the very charming, tender air that
accompanies them.
I had often heard this song of "Bold
General Wolfe," and had heard many variants
and some grievous corruptions of the melody.
I asked Daniel if he knew " Bold General
Wolfe."
He did not answer in words. The far-off
look came into his eyes, he remained with
bow poised in air waiting, recalling. I
DANIEL JACOBS 55
hummed to him the opening strain. He
heard me not, he had gone off in memory to
an old tavern where men sat about the worm-
eaten table wet with ale slops, and with little
piles of tobacco-ash heaped up, and he
paused listening to these old comrades sing
ing in the far-away past. Then the sun came
into Daniel's countenance, he drew his bow
across the strings, and played the tune till he
reached the " Don't be downhearted," when
a cloud came over his face, his eyes became
dull, he faltered and broke down. He had
forgotten.
Again he essayed "Bold General Wolfe,"
and again he failed. The old man was dis
tressed ; he would not be able to relish any
meat, not drink his drop of ale, not sleep a
wink of sleep till he had recovered "Don't
be downhearted."
Presently a sigh of relief came from his
bosom.
"I reckon," said he, "there's Tailor
Vanstone can zing he. But he ain't a right
tailor neither, for he don't sit cross-legged,
for as he harn't got but one leg to cross.
T'other's lost somehow."
" Come along," said I, " we'll go visit Mr.
Vanstone."
So away we went together, the poor limping
56 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
fiddler and myself, in quest of the one-legged
tailor. We found him, and he was ready
enough to supply the missing strain. Van-
stone had a stentorian voice, and he bellowed
as a bull — " Don't be downhearted ! Don't
be downhearted."
" A minute ! " pleaded Daniel, as he set
his fiddle under his chin and twanged the
strings to get the key in which Vanstone was
roaring.
Vanstone swelled his lungs and began
again —
" Don't be downhearted ! Don't be down
hearted ! Don't be downhearted ! "
A smile on old Daniel's face, and with his
bow he ran on, and sang, " But ga-a-a-a-ain
the victory ! "
Daniel Jacobs' life has been a wasted one.
His is a wrecked career. He told me one clay
how this came about. When he was a boy
he had made for himself a little fiddle, and
had acquired some skill on it. It produced
but a feeble noise, much like the twittering
of the toys that amuse children, when a quill
strikes a cord.
One day a gentleman heard him play, and
was struck by his skill and ingenuity.
" Dan'l, would you like to become a musi
cian f "
DANIEL JACOBS 57
It was as though a sunbeam shot into his
heart and filled it with glory. I can conceive
the answer of the boy — not in words, but
with a blaze of thankfulness out of his hand
some full brown eyes.
"Well," said the gentleman, "I do not
mind finding the money for your training.
Run home, Daniel, and get your father's
consent, and we will make a great man of
you."
The boy ran, nay, bounded home. He
did not feel the earth under his feet.
The father was a Methodist, of a severe
school.
" Make a fiddler of you ? " he exclaimed.
" The Lord forbid that I should have a son
turn out such a worthless scamp. Come
along, you rascal, with me."
He caught the boy by the arm, dragged
him to a saddler, and then and there appren
ticed him to that man. The boy became
ill with disappointment; he could not eat
nor sleep. He cried over his work and did
it badly. He was ashamed to go back to
the gentleman and tell him that he had not
been allowed to accept his generous offer.
" That wor a mistake," said Daniel ; " I
ought to ha' done it, but I wor part shy,
part ashamed. I didn't know how to put it
58 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
to the gentleman — 'twas Squire Stoodly —
that was like as if I threw his offer back in
his face, and so I let it alone. And I worn't
easy i' my mind about that, and I took on
cruel about myself, for I didn't fancy the
saddling trade, and I knowed I'd never get
on in that. Well, your Honour, next winter
were a green winter as made a fat church
yard. It took off my father wi' a brown-
kitties (bronchitis), and Squire Stoodly wi'
an ulster (ulcer) in his stomick. My master
he sed he niver could make nothing rayson-
able out o' me, but I bided on my time,
and when that was up, he sed he couldn't
afford to keep me on, as I weren't worth the
thread and needles I broke ! So — I've been
ever since."
Ever since a wandering fiddler, homeless,
almost friendless. Alas ! the fiddle took
him to the tavern, and there he was treated
to ale for the sake of his fiddle, and was
given by the taverner a shake-down in a
corner of the stable or shed.
What little money he earned was through
his needle. He travelled from farm to farm
to mend broken harness, patch up torn
saddles ; his work was coarse, uncouth, but
strong, and on the Moor, who cares much
for the appearance of his horse gear ?
DANIEL JACOBS 59
Always with the old fiddle in its green
case under his arm, he trudged about, and
was given work where there was work to be
done, and never was denied a meal. Per
haps he might have done better had he
been able to settle down and open a little
saddler's shop, but the violin interfered, that
drew him to the public-house, where he ex
pended his little earnings, and therefore he
was never able to accumulate sufficient to
take a shop and stock it.
One Sunday, the curate in charge of one
of the chapels on the Moor met ragged
David hobbling along, with the sweat-drops
on his brow, for to walk was painful to him.
Said the curate —
" Mr. Jacobs, do you ever go to a place
of worship ? "
Daniel halted, looked vacantly around at
the brown moor with the grey rocks crown
ing the heights, drew his fiddle from the
cover, and passing the bow across the strings,
played "The Old Hundredth."
That was his sole answer.
He put back the fiddle, and hobbled on.
But the look of his eyes said, " My work is
in the farm, my entertainment is in the
tavern, my worship — when my heart rises
to God — is here,"
60 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
Trouble came to Daniel Jacobs. One
blustering night, when the snow fell in
flakes, he had applied for work, and was told
there was none, and he was not offered
shelter or food. To proceed over the
moors was impossible. He was spent with
weariness, and in his crippled condition he
could not get along in the snow.
So the old man sought out a barn, in
which was straw, and there he lit his pipe,
and began to tune his instrument.
Now the farmer suspected that Daniel
had not gone far, so he went to look for
him, before he shut up for the night, and
found him smoking and fiddling among the
straw.
This was too much for his endurance,
and Daniel was summoned before the magis
trates and sent to prison for a calendar
month.
I saw the old man somewhat later — in the
summer. I had invited him to come and
see me, and bring me a budget of folk
melodies I had set him to collect.
He appeared, ragged, forlorn, with his
sweet, engaging smile, that, however, almost
brought tears into the eyes of those who
saw him.
" I beg your Honour's pardon if I have
DANIEL JACOBS 61
not done what your Honour set me. There
was a little circumstance was against my
doing what I had undertaken — with the
partic'lars o' which I needn't trouble your
Honour ; they wouldn't interest none but
me " (that meant his having been in gaol).
" I'm very sorry to have to disappoint you
— but since then I've had the in-flow-in-sir
(influenza)."
The summer was fine, promised to be un
usually dry ; so I encouraged the old man
to employ himself through it in collecting
airs for me, in addition to his usual work of
going round the farms mending harness.
The summer passed, and I heard nothing
of him. Then I thought to inquire after
the fiddler at some of the farms to which he
was wont to resort. At each I was told,
" Yes, Dan 1, he's been here. Gettin' ter
rible frail and uncertain."
Where could he be ?
No one was responsible for him. His
home was nowhere. He was but a bird of
passage everywhere. He had been here,
been there, walking with more difficulty
than usual, looking whiter in face than
usual, complaining that "this here in-flow-
in-sir had left him cruel weak." It was sur
mised that it had affected his mind. He
62 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
never had been a good workman ; now his
work was done worse than ever, and he
seemed to have no satisfaction in anything
save playing his violin.
" And what has he been performing ? "
" Nothin' particular, just a bit here and a
bit there — but the poor old chap, he'd sit as
one lost in a sort o' dream, and then take out
his fiddle, and begin playing and singing —
' Don't be downhearted,
Don't be downhearted,
But ga-a-a-a-ain the victory.' "
" You do not think he has got into trouble
again ? "
"N-no. You see there's no depending
on him. He don't seem to think o' nothing
but his fiddle. If he'd been setting fire to
anything, we'd have heard. But bless y'
there's no more malice in the ou'd man than
in a lamb or dove."
Not having been able to hear tidings of
Daniel Jacobs at the farms, I inquired at the
inns — not at temperance taverns, they were
not likely to be frequented by the fiddler.
What a strange thing it was — here was this
poor, wrecked life, wrecked and poor
through one fatal mistake, and that not his
own. Had his father suffered him to accept
the offer made him as a boy, Daniel might
DANIEL JACOBS 63
have been a prosperous as well as a happy
man. Allowed to follow his natural bent, to
develop the genius that was in him, to live
in his proper artistic world, he would have
been able to do more than maintain him
self; he would in all likelihood have had
a home, with wife and children, perhaps at
this age even grandchildren, climbing on his
knee and kissing the old man, as they played
with his snowy locks.
It was infinitely sad to think that a father,
well-intentioned, generally right-minded,
should have marred his son's life by one act
of wrong judgment. The life of this man
was wreckage from end to end ; he knew it,
he traced it back to that fatal mistake, but
never said a harsh word against the father
who had spoiled his life. " You see, your
Honour, he were a terrible strict man in
his idees, and a taytotaller." So this was
the result of principles carried out to
exaggeration.
No doubt the old man felt that he him
self was too full of fault to cast a stone
against his father, even had not filial
reverence held him back from so doing.
Now I was constrained to inquire at the
public-houses for the lost son of the " tay-
totaller." I heard he had been seen, but
64 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
no one knew where he was. No publican
was responsible for him.
" Well, sir/' said one landlord, " I was
sorry for the old chap, but you see I really
could not keep him for nothing. He
wouldn't even play through a lively bit of a
dance for the men, he went rambling about
from one tune to another. He'd rayther
suit his own fancy than ours, and so at last
he went away — fiddling as he went."
" Fiddling as he went ? "
" Yes, sir, and singing —
{ Don't be downhearted,
Don't be downhearted,
But ga-a-a-a-ain the victory.' "
" When was that ? "
" Only yesterday."
" And which way did he go ? "
The publican indicated the direction.
It was clear to me that Daniel had in
tended to cross a portion of moorland to a
farm that lay some miles to the north. The
way was not easy — there intervened some
rock-strewn slopes and several rather trouble
some bogs.
I thought of following in the direction
taken by him, and making inquiry at the
farm. In all probability I would find him
there.
DANIEL JACOBS 6$
A friend was with me. We agreed to
walk thither together, and on the way to
measure an avenue of upright stones that
had not hitherto been planned. We had a
good walk, the wind was cold, and there was
no sun ; the sky overcast, the moor plum
colour from the shadows of the burdened
clouds. After we had gone some distance
my friend said, "I pity your old cripple
over such a ragged moor as this. Could he
have done it ? "
" That we shall soon learn. Yonder is
the farm."
We reached the settlement, — a house
surrounded by fields and " new-takes."
Daniel Jacobs had not been there.
The innkeeper must have been mistaken
as to his purpose.
We started to return, and had walked
nearly half-way back, when we came on an
old ruined cottage in a coombe ; it had not
been tenanted within the memory of man.
No trees sheltered it, but the rotten stumps
of some remained. Not a particle of roof
was in position.
My friend cast himself down outside,
where the wall sheltered him from the cold
blast. " I vote for grub," said he, and he
unslung his bottle of cold tea, and began to
66 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
unbuckle the bag that contained sandwiches
and cake, and hard-boiled eggs. Nothing
loth, I cast myself beside him, and soon
conversation ceased, as both were engaged
in eating.
Whilst we took our lunch, at intervals a
strange and inexplicable sound reached our
ears. Both noticed it, but neither spoke
about it for some time. Presently, when it
had been repeated for half-a-dozen times,
my friend said, " Old chap, what the dickens
is that ? "
I shrugged my shoulders.
The sound was peculiar, musical, as of a
harp twanged, and then came an interval of
silence, then the twang again long drawn.
" Where does it come from ? " asked my
friend.
"I'll go see — it is somewhat uncanny,"
said I, jumping up, leaving my flask and
sandwiches, and entering the ruin by the
broken-down doorway. Then I started.
Near the long-disused hearth and the
granite chimney-piece, supported against the
jamb, was Daniel Jacobs, dead, in a sitting
posture, and beside him, fallen from his
hand — the violin.
I stood silent, amazed, doubtful whether
the old man really was dead — then I heard
DANIEL JACOBS 67
the plaintive sound again. A heather bush
grew among the fallen stones beside the
fiddle, and the wind, driving in in gusts
through the broken door, carried the harsh
branches with a sweep across the exposed
strings ; it drew forth a vibration — ceased,
then swept like mystic fingers over the
strings again, and again brought out that
weird, mournful note. I looked again at the
old man. There was no longer the old far-
off look in the eyes, but a look further still.
He was looking, not into the tone-world
here, but into the world of harmony
beyond.
SNAILY HOUSE
THE day was drawing in — a nasty day,
with lumbering clouds rolling up from the
north-west bursting with ice-cold showers.
The spot, moreover, was about as nasty
an one as could have been found for ex
posure on such a day, and for encountering
the driving rain, chill as thawed hailstones,
and nearly as hard as hailstones unthawed.
This spot was the road that crosses
Dartmoor from Moreton Hampstead to
Tavistock. The whole of this wide, howling
wilderness is traversed by one road only,
with two branches, forming the letter Y.
One branch goes north-east to Moreton, the
other south-east to Ashburton, from a point
above Two Bridges — where, by the way,
of bridges there is but one — situated about
half-way through Dartmoor.
The spot on which we are looking at this
69
70 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
moment is half-way up the left-hand branch,
precisely where that road reaches its highest
elevation, fifteen hundred feet above the sea
level, and where is planted the highest
wayside inn in England.
All round, far as the eye could reach, only
brown moor rising into ridges, falling away
into deep valleys, the shoulders scarred as
though they had been lashed by the knout
of the Russian, and healed over in welts —
the traces of ancient tin-streamers' works.
The wind came on cutting as a plough
share from the cold staring eye of the wind,
to the north-west, over which hung an ink-
black frown heavy with threat. It moaned
in the heather, it piped in the rushes, it
sobbed in the bracken, and it screamed as
in the agony and rage combined of a
tortured idiot, through the loose stone walls
that were thrown up to mark tin-bounds,
walls of stone lace-work, without mortar, and
riddled with interstices.
If the day was one of the worst con
ceivable, and the spot one of the most
exposed, those struggling along the road
were the least suited to encounter the in
clemency of the weather and place ; they
were two girls, so strikingly alike, and so
exactly the same in dress, as in feature and
SNAILY HOUSE 71
height, that none for a minute could doubt
that they were twin sisters.
" Janie," said the one, " I reckon there be
anither o' them Northern Nannies a-coming
on us."
" Joan, I fear it too," answered the other.
" They're terrifying things, they be."
A Northern Nannie is one of those
explosions of ice-cold rain in a driving blast
that was being threatened by the lowering
sky.
"Here's a public-house, Janie," said the
second. " What do'y say, shall us turn in
till the Nannie be a-passed over ? "
" No, Janie, I reckon not. It don't seem
fitty for two young maidens to go into an
ale-house, and there be miners there for
sure."
" Whativer shall us do then, Joanie ? Tis
cruel cold, and nothing will niver keep the
rain out o' we. It will blow right into our
bones."
" There's a sort o' a shay at the door/'
" Yes, but what's the good o' a shay to
we ?
" Us can get into 'n out o' the rain/'
"No, surely!"
" Yes, why not ? There is no one in it."
The two girls came to the carriage, and
72 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
peeped through the glass windows, just as
the rain began to fall like a volley from a
regiment.
The conveyance was of a very wonderful
description. It was painted yellow, it had
glass in front, and a leather apron. It would
accommodate two persons only, like a
modern hansom. It was slung on immense
C springs. This conveyance dated from the
days of the Regency, when the Prince came
to Dartmoor to visit Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt
at Tor Royal. On the death of Sir Thomas,
this had been sold along with other effects,
and had passed into the possession of a
little publican at Crockern Tor, named
Leaman. The publican was dead, and his
son Joe reigned in his stead at " The Fox
Brush," on the roadside.
On this day laden with Northern Nannies,
Joe Leaman had driven a couple of gentle
men to Moreton Hampstead, who had come
to the moor on a scheme for the extraction
of naphtha from the peat. Now he was on
his return to " The Fox Brush/' and had
turned into " The Warren Inn " to have a
drop of something comforting and strength
ening against the sweep of the gale and its
icy splash, before proceeding on his way.
The patient horse remained outside bar-
SNAILY HOUSE 73
nessed to the conveyance, with head down,
its hair blown into rough heaps and brakes.
A moorland brute little heeds wind and
rain, so long as it can turn its tail to both.
This creature may perhaps have felt a hard
ship in having to face the blast and the
stroke of the rain, but it bore all with stolid
endurance.
" There be no one in the carnage," said
Joan. " I reckon us could do worse than
hop in."
" But whativer should us say — if
found ? "
" Say," repeated Joan, " that us were terri
fied at the rain, and us wanted to keep dry —
and two modest, decent maidens don't go
into public-houses."
The rain swept almost horizontally, it was
more like the rush of a mill-sluice than of a
rain-storm. The girls could find their way
into the trap only by unbuttoning the
apron, and creeping in under the windows.
Joan led the way, Jane followed with hesi
tation.
"Shut the flap, fasten 'n do'y," said Joan.
" Oh my, bain't this cosy like in here ? "
Cosy the little interior was, snugly cush
ioned, warm as though heated by a stove —
50 it seemed to the girls as they found
74 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
shelter from the raging wind that swept from
Labrador charged with bitterness and cold.
In two minutes a white cloud had formed
on the glass panes of the vehicle, through
which nothing could be seen save the trick
ling of drops down the outside of the glass.
" There's a fog come on — white as wool,"
said Jane.
" I reckon not," answered Joan. " See,
with my finger I can scatter it." Then she
drew a comical face on the pane through the
cloud of condensed breath.
" I wonder how long us can bide here,"
mused Jane. " 'Twill be ten times worse
when us have to get out again."
" You be easy/' answered the sister ; " take
comfort while you may ; the driver won't
come out of 'The Warren Inn' till the
Northern Nannie be overpast, and then us
can get out same time. When the weather
suits he then it will suit we."
The girls had walked for several miles,
had ascended steep hills, had been exposed
to the wind, which had been in their faces
the whole way ; each was encumbered with
a tolerably heavy bundle that contained a
best gown and necessary articles. Both
were somewhat exhausted with exercise and
exposure to which they were unwont. Both
SNAILY HOUSE 75
now felt the satisfaction of rest in an equable
temperature, and in a luxurious seat. The
transition was so sudden, that it produced an
unexpected effect on the sisters. At first
they lapsed into silence, and in another
moment into unconsciousness.
Both were roused with a start by the
feeling that they were in motion, and as they
gathered their senses together, became aware
that the vehicle was in rapid progression
down a hill.
The sisters looked each other in the face
— then looked before them. Through the
white film on the glass they could see some
thing looming black and big. It was the
driver. He had mounted the box unper-
ceived by them, and had started on his way
unconscious that his conveyance was occu
pied ; for the vaporous coating of the panes
that prevented the girls from seeing what was
outside, prevented him from observing what
was within.
What were they to do ? They were
frightened. They could not get out. They
did not know how to open the carriage, and
to emerge from under the apron in a crawl
ing posture, whilst the conveyance was pro
ceeding at a rapid pace downhill, was not to
be thought of.
;6 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
To open the window in front was the only
thing that could be done, and in their ner
vousness and inexperience they did not know
how to do this.
It was not till the bottom of the hill was
reached, the pace relaxed, and the angle at
which the girls had been inclined was re
versed, so that they knew that they were
being carried uphill, that they were able to
open a pane in the glass front and cry out
for the carriage to be stopped ; and then
but one face alone could engage this small
opening. " Halloo ! " exclaimed the coach
man, and bounced off his seat on to the road,
and putting up a hand, opened a portion
of the window. " By the pipers, who be
here?"
" It be we," replied Jane.
" And who be we ? " asked the driver, walk
ing by the side of the carriage, looking in with
a face full of amusement and admiration.
He had cause to be amused, and to admire.
The situation was certainly a droll one. The
two girls had gone into a trap that had shut
on them, and he had them in his power.
He had cause to admire, for they were both
girls of remarkable beauty, fair in complexion,
with a pure rose in their cheeks, eyes blue
as the speedwell, and hair like spun gold.
SNAILY HOUSE 77
u Ton my word ! " laughed the driver,
" which is which ? " He meant that both
were so much alike, that one was the counter
part of the other.
" Who be you, maidens ? " he asked, as
he walked alongside of the imprisoned
damsels, laughing and looking mischievous.
"Us be Joan and Jane Westlake," an
swered the timid Jane. " Us were going to
our aunt to Whiteslade."
« What— to Snaily House ? "
" I reckon some folks do so call it. Do'y
now let us get out."
" And where do'y come from now ? " he
asked, without acknowledging the petition.
" Us be from Chudleigh. Since Aunt
Susanna's death at Snaily House, Aunt
Sarah be that terrible lonely, her has sent
for we."
" Going to feed you on snails, be she ? "
Neither girl answered this question.
" Be you going to live with she ? " asked
the driver.
"Yes, I reckon. Some one must be wi'
aunt, and Jane can't go wi'out I, and me
can't be separated from Joan."
"Then you be sisters?"
" Aye, twins."
"Thought so; you're like as two blooms
78 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
on one stalk, and two purty berries on one
witch-beam (mountain-ash) branch; or two
gladdys (yellow-hammers) singing in one
tree."
"Can't you now let us out, and stay
makin' remarks ? " asked Joan.
" It's getting late/' said the driver. " The
night will be set in another hour."
" More's the reason we should be on our
feet, and away to Whiteslade."
"I be purty sure you'd niver find your
way in the dim'mets (dusk), and you'd get
lost on the moor."
" Then let us out."
"That would be a cruel job — two lost
innocent lambs in the howling storm and
the pitch-black night."
"Let us out!"
" I'll see about you bein' put straight for
Snaily House. You leave that to me."
Then the man jumped on the box, lashed
the horse, and away whirled the trap down
a hill at a rapid pace. He had shut and
buckled the window. Communication with
him could be had only through the one
pane that opened inwards.
Thenceforth he remained on the box, and
would listen to neither entreaty nor expostu
lation. The girls were carried on beyond
SNAILY HOUSE 79
that point of the road where they believed
they ought to have turned on to the pathless
heath, they could do nothing to extricate
themselves, and finally they sank back on
the cushions, sobbing with vexation and
alarm.
And yet — there was an element in the
situation that prevented them from being
over-vexed and over-alarmed. The driver
— who was Joe Leaman — was a young,
handsome, good-natured man. His face
was open and full of sunshine. It was not
possible for the girls to think that he in
tended other than kindness, though that
kindness might be irksome and contrary to
their wishes.
Suddenly he whisked through a gate, and
in another minute drew up in front of a
small, stone-built, slated inn — "The Fox
Brush." Now he came to the side, opened
the window, unbuttoned the apron, and held
out his hand to assist the girls to descend.
"You must excudge me, maidens," he
said. " But I weren't going to let two white
doves like you go flittering over the moor
at nightfall, an' any number o' hawks about.
So I've just brought you to my house,
where ou'd mother, her'll take kear o' you,
and you shan't want for nothin', and to-
8o DARTMOOR IDYLLS
morrow I'll just go wi' you to Snaily House.
And, moreover," he added, with a laugh, " I
thought as how before goin' there to feed
on slugs, you'd best have a good supper off
Dartimoor mutton."
"We must go to Aunt Sarah," expostu
lated Jane.
" You can't do it, missie ! It's miles
away, and it's getting black night already.
Come in, and don't mak' a pair o' fuils
(fools) o' yourselves. Mother '11 look arter
you both, and you'll bring a blessin' on this
house — us '11 be entertainin' angels for sure ;
and us '11 make ye as welcome, and give ye
o' our best, as did the ou'd Patriarch
Abraham, when he were visited by like
guests."
The girls were compelled by circum
stances to submit. It was obviously im
possible for them to make their way in
darkness across the moor, where there was
no path. The rain had settled in for a night
of downpour. They entered the inn, and
the young man in a few words explained to
his mother who they were, and why they
were present.
She received them without much gracious-
ness, she was manifestly annoyed at her
son's inconsiderate proceeding. He ought to
SNAILY HOUSE 81
have allowed the sisters to alight at Post
Bridge, on the Dart, whence they could
have followed the river to their aunt's, and
if they did not know the way, might have
engaged a boy as guide.
It was distressing to the girls to hear the
remarks made by Mrs. Leaman, and they
would gladly have escaped had this now
been feasible ; but a look from the door, the
splashing of the rain against the window, as
though buckets of water were discharged
against the glass, showed them that to leave
the house would be madness, and Joe did
everything in his power to reconcile them to
the inevitable, and to neutralise his mother's
ill-humour.
Happily there was no stranger in the inn.
The badness of the night prevented moor-
men from coming there for drink, so that
the sisters had the house to themselves, and
Joe had nothing to distract him from
devoting his entire attention to them.
He endeavoured to amuse them, to dissi
pate their shyness, to interest them in the
moor^ to which they were strangers, and
not a little to startle them with wild tales
concerning it, of the Wish Hounds that
hunted across it, fire-breathing black dogs
said to course the wide wastes of a night,
82 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
driven on by a mysterious hunter, whose
horn may be heard, as well as his call to
the dogs, but who himself is rarely if ever
seen.
Next morning the sun shone brightly.
The wind had fallen, and there was promise
of a beautiful day. The moor grass twinkled
with rain-drops, the cobwebs were strung
with pearls, a delicate vapour like the finest
gauze veil covered the landscape.
Under the guidance of their host, the
girls started for the house of their aunt.
Reserve had given way under the genial
influence of the good-nature of Joe, and
his mother had relaxed her sternness when
the sisters insisted on paying for their
lodging and food. Joe had protested,
blustered, but the girls had been resolute,
and Mrs. Leaman eager to receive the pay.
The girls Joan and Jane started cheer
fully on their walk with Joe, who carried
their bundles.
How fair these sisters were in the bright
morning light ! What sparkle there was in
their brilliantly blue eyes ! What a delicate
changing glow on their smooth cheeks!
What a lustre in their hair ! And oh ! the
powers ! said Joe to himself — what lips for a
fellow to see and not to be able to kiss — for
SNAILY HOUSE 83
why ? because he could not make up his
mind which were the most kissable, those of
Joan, or those of Jane.
" I wonder why you call Aunt Sally's
house by its wrong name ? " said Joan.
" It was christened Whiteslade."
To this Joe only answered, " I hope you'll
get summut better to eat than slugs and
snails."
There was a story to account for the
peculiar designation, but Joe Leaman had no
mind to tell it. The story was this.
Two old maids had long lived at White
slade, a solitary cottage on the East Dart
below Laughter Tor, hid behind a " clatter "
of fallen rocks, overshadowed by half-a-
dozen sycamore and ash trees. Here they
had lived without ostensible means of sub
sistence for many years. They did not go
to market, no dealer, miller, grocer came
to their door, remote from every road.
They employed no man to till their garden,
and all they grew was a few potatoes
and cabbages. Nourishing the moor air
might be, but it could not sustain life
unassisted.
The farmers for some time had missed
sheep. At length suspicion was aroused ; it
was thought that these old sisters lured the
84 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
sheep by charms to their habitation, and
then killed them for their larder, or else
that they went hunting them by night,
riding broom-sticks.
The farmers assembled and surrounded
the lonesome cottage, forced their way in,
and found — -jars full of salted slugs ; not a
particle of meat, not a trace of bones.
And now, the elder of the sisters was
dead, and the nieces were on their way to
live with the surviving aunt, whom they had
never seen, and only heard of vaguely, so
completely had these poor women kept
themselves to themselves.
Joan and Jane were orphans, without
father and mother, and they came to their
surviving relative, Aunt Sally, of Snaily
House.
Since the discovery of the potted slugs,
the moormen had dealt kindly with the old
women, had often sent them offerings of
part of a sheep, or some portions of a pig
when killed ; cheese, butter, cake, had come
to them from the farmers' wives.
The twin sisters were much astonished
at the wildness of the way, the complete
isolation of Whiteslade ; and were a little
dismayed at the prospect of living in such
a home.
SNAILY HOUSE 85
Joe escorted them to the paddock in
which stood the house, and there left the
sisters, that he might return to "The
Fox Brush."
When he came home, he met his mother
in the doorway. She looked more grim than
ever.
" Well, Joe," said she, in harsh tones,
"which is it to be?"
Joe took off his cap and scratched his
head. A look of blank perplexity came into
his honest eyes.
" One — -for sure sartain," he said ; " but
dratted if I know which."
Next day Joe was engaged. Travellers
passed along the road in the direction of
Tavistock to market in the morning, and in
the opposite direction, returning from market,
in the evening.
But the day following was Saturday,
when a Sabbath rest fell on the high-road —
that repose which ever succeeds a market
day.
Then Joe got his stick, put on his hat,
and buttoned his gaiters.
" Where be you off to now ? " asked his
mother.
" I be going to Snaily House."
" What for ? "
86 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" I want to see as the ou'd woman there
ain't a- feeding of them lovely sisters wi' slugs.
And, mother, I reckon there's a bit o' thickey
(that there) veal-and-ham pie left. I think
as I'll take it wi' me. I can't a-bear to
believe as them beautiful coral lips be a-
consuming of snails."
"Which coral lips, Joe?"
The young man's face became perturbed.
" That's just what I be going to find out,"
he answered.
When he returned in the evening he sat
himself by the fire, threw out his legs, and
said, " Mother, I do believe as it must be
Joan."
But as he said Good-night to his mother
some hours later, he muttered : u I made a
misreckon, mother — Jane is the maid for
me."
SNAILY HOUSE 87
II
FOR the first time in the lives of these
sisters a small thorn, causing some pain and
estrangement, had entered their hearts.
Alas ! Joe Leaman was the cause.
When the young man appeared on the
furzy hill opposite, descending among the
granite boulders, with his sheep-dog barking
and gambolling before him, then each sister
felt at once a gleam of sunshine in her heart,
but that same gleam produced also its
shadow. For each thought — He has come
for me — and, Oh ! if my sister were not
here!
Moreover, when, after having done some
kind act, as patching up a broken door,
thatching a rotted roof, piling up the moor
stones that walled in the little garden, Joe
went away without having spoken definite
words encouraging either to believe that she
was his chosen one, then Joan, with some
bitterness, resented the pertinacity with which
Jane had clung to her, and had refused to
leave her alone for half-an-hour with Joe, to
88 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
give him that opportunity which he had
doubtless sought, and for which he had
purposely come.
And Jane in her gentle soul felt a pang
of disappointment, because Joan had neg
lected to do the necessary cooking that
day, and had not left her alone with Joe
Leaman.
In fact, each sister was jealous of the other
sister. Each was suspicious of the other.
Each begrudged the other that happiness
she looked to obtain for herself.
Outwardly, the twins were as attached and
as inseparable as before, and yet each was
aware that a barrier was rising that alienated
their hearts from each other. Each strug
gled against this feeling. Each tried hard
to imagine the other as the wife of Joe Lea
man, and herself content that it should be
so, and yet — so rebellious, so masterful is the
human heart, that neither could control it,
and bind it down to feel as good sisterhood
would require it.
Jane felt a pang in her heart whenever Joe
smiled on and addressed a pleasant word to
Joan, and Joan was uneasy and jealous when
ever Joe's attention was unduly engrossed by
Jane.
The sisters had small means of their own.
SNAILY HOUSE 89
They were not in the condition of abject
poverty that had forced their aunts to live on
pickled slugs. The two old women had been
too proud, too independent to turn to their
relatives for help, when they occupied a tene
ment for which they were required to pay
nothing, and could maintain life on what
nature so bountifully supplied, the huge,
fat, black slug that battened on the deli
cate grass of the moor, and that was a
game sought by none, begrudged them by
nobody.
Now that one of the old women was dead,
the sister who remained, Aunt Sally, had to
be weaned, gently yet firmly, by the girls
from her " snaily meals," as they called her
diet on fresh or potted slugs. They per
sisted, with perhaps cruel kindness, for it was
certain that Aunt Sally did not thrive on good
mutton and white bread as she had on the
old rye cakes and moorland slugs.
Or was it that the presence of two fresh
charming nieces in exuberant life was over
powering to the poor old woman, accus
tomed for many years to no other society
than that of her silent and slow-moving
sister ?
Both Joan and Jane were considerate and
kind to the old creature, they could not have
90 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
been more so. But habit had become so
strong with Aunt Sally that she could not
accustom herself to anything other than that
mode of life to which she had been accus
tomed in her sister's time, any more than
she could to the change of diet. Her birth
day came, and with it a couple of ducks, the
present of Joe Leaman.
" Ducks ! Oh ! Ducks ! " exclaimed the
twins with one voice. " We'll have 'em for
supper, and eat auntie's many happy returns
and good health in 'em."
But — alack-a-day and well is me ! as Joan
said afterwards — " It was them ducks did it."
What the ducks did was to finish off Aunt
Sally. She ate heartily of roast duck, and
relished what she had not tasted for fifty-
three years, and in the night had a stroke of
apoplexy.
She was speechless next day, but on the
second day recovered a little power in her
tongue. She could recognise her nieces,
hold their hands, and she spoke.
" Don't be troubled," she muttered, " the
duck did it. I ain't accustomed to duck — •
only to snails."
" Shall us send for a doctor ? " asked one
of the sisters, partly of the aunt, partly of the
other.
SNAILY HOUSE 91
"Joe said as how in extreme cases the
doctor from the prisons out to Princetown
were allowed to come."
" I want no doctor," said the sick woman.
" Duck did it. This be a wicked world for
sure — ducks is terrible rich — and there was
the ingin stuffin' too."
Then her mind began to wander.
" Shall us send for Mr. Coaker, the Wes-
leyan local ? " asked Jane.
" I reely don't know," said Joan. " Auntie,
be you happy ? Be you feeling comfort
able ? "
" Duck ! " whispered the patient, pointing
to her bosom.
" I mean elsewhere ? " said Joan.
But Aunt Sally had passed into semi-
unconsciousness.
The sisters sat watching her for some
minutes in anxiety and doubt.
Presently a smile broke out on the old
woman's face, just such as comes over the
landscape after a rainy day, when at sun
down the cloud masses are lifted slightly at
the horizon, and a flood of brightness and
beauty envelops the scene.
Jane bowed over her aunt, kissed her,
and whispered —
" What is it, auntie darling ? "
92 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" I reckon I sees Susanna/' she replied —
Susanna was the sister who was dead.
" Her's all a-blazin' wi' light ; and, oh my !
ain't the fields green and shining too —
and such fat 'uns."
" Fat what, auntie ? "
"And lots — scores "
« What ? Lots of what, dear ? "
" Snails. Susanna is a pickin' of 'em. I
be comin', Susanna ; keep some for me ! "
She never spoke again.
When Aunt Sally was buried in Wide-
combe churchyard, then the sisters Joan
and Jane had to consider what they should
do — whether remain at Snaily House, or
return into the world ; whether subsist as
they well could on their tiny income in this
lonesome spot, or separate and enter service.
They elected to remain. Independence
was a great boon. They loved each other,
and could not endure the idea of being
parted. The thought of Joe retained them.
Surely now he would make his election, and
then the one who was put aside would leave
and swallow her disappointment elsewhere,
and in new scenes, among new acquaintances,
try to forget Joe and become reconciled in
mind to her sister being chosen instead of
herself.
SNAILY HOUSE 93
But Joe did not speak, or rather he spoke
in such a manner as to raise equal expecta
tions in the hearts of both.
They told him that it had entered into
consideration with them whether they
should leave Whiteslade.
" Oh, don't do that ! Whativer should I
do wi'out you ? " exclaimed Joe. " Besides,
it mayn't be so long before — before I "
then he paused and looked at Joan and next
at Jane, significantly. " You know what I
mean," he said, confidentially. " You know
what brings me over the moors to Snaily
House."
" Oh, Joe ! " said Joan. " Do'y think us
could have it put on auntie's tombstone as
she died o' duck ? "
" Because," explained Jane, " folks do say
such tales about the snails ; and it wasn't
snails at all, it was duck did it."
Time passed — a year — another year, and
the two girls remained at Snaily House,
living on quietly, happily, but always with a
little jar in their affection for each other, a
little fly in their cup of happiness ; always
with a fearful looking forward to the
moment when Joe would decide which of
the two he would take. And each sister
felt that when that decision was made, even
94 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
if he chose her, there would be in her heart
an ache almost overbalancing the happiness,
at the thought of her sister's disappointment,
sorrow, and desolation when parted from
her, and left alone in the world.
Then Joe's mother died.
She had been an obstruction all along.
She had not relished the prospect of having
" one o' them Snaily House maidens " as a
daughter-in-law. She had grumbled when
ever Joe took presents to the girls. She
had found fault with him equally for his
persistence in going to see them, and for
his inability to decide which he would
select.
The sisters had come to understand that
the eventful day of proposal was postponed
throughout the life of the mother, because
of her opposition.
When she was gathered to the dust, then
this difficulty was removed. Joe must cer
tainly have some one to manage " The Fox
Brush," and whom could he take better
than either Joan or Jane Westlake ? But it
was manifestly improper for him to think
of such a thing immediately after his
mother's death. He could not marry when
in deep mourning. And yet the house
must be carried on.
SNAILY HOUSE 95
Accordingly Joe's sister Betsy, who had
recently lost her husband, came, and soon
laid hold of the reins and conducted the
public-house in a masterful and experienced
manner.
The year passed, and the band six inches
deep of black crape that Joe wore on his
Sunday hat had shrunk to one of an inch
and a half. But he had not spoken. He
still visited Whiteslade. He still professed
the warmest regard for the sisters — equally.
Sometimes, it must be confessed, there
was an effusiveness in his manner, combined
with a watery look of the eye, combined
also with a certain atmosphere that pervaded
him, which made the sisters shrink. Was
it the case that Joe was taking to drink —
good-natured, generous, harmless Joe ?
" You see/' said Joan, " he is a publican,
and he must sometimes for good fellowship
take a drop with those who step in."
" And then," said Jane, " he is so amiable,
he can't refuse nobody — and — it's good for
trade."
However much the sisters might to each
other excuse this fault in Joe, neither could
conceal from herself that it was morally
inexcusable in a young man, and might lead
to very serious consequences.
96 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
In fact, Joe was falling into the vicious
habit of taking nips of the spirits and ale
which he distributed. He was, possibly,
helped to this evil habit by the irresolution
in his own mind as to what he was to do
with himself, to which of the sisters he was
to offer his hand and "The Fox Brush. "
An irresolute man is a weak one. He often
is conscious of his irresolution, and seeks
to find strength outside of him instead of in
his own moral nature.
Joe's sister, Mrs; Betsy Squance, was a
strong-minded woman, not particularly scru
pulous where her own interests were con
cerned. She had made up her mind, in the
event of her remaining a widow, to spend
the rest of her days at " The Fox Brush,"
and that could only be by the exclusion of
one or other of the twin sisters at Snaily
House.
She used her superior force of character
to dissuade her brother from marriage, not
openly but by various underhand methods,
and she allowed him unreproved to contract
the habit of taking liquor ; for the more he
thus weakened his moral vigour, the less
likely he was to come to a decision relative
to the sisters, the more sure she was of
maintaining her position behind the bar —
SNAILY HOUSE 97
a position where, as she considered, she
might catch a successor to the late Thomas
Squance. Should she succeed in doing this,
then, indeed, Joe was heartily welcome to
take to him one or both of the twin sisters
— for aught she cared.
So passed another year. Now the inch
and half strip of mourning had been dis
carded from Joe's hat. Still the sisters
were at Snaily House, still Joe remained in
hesitating admiration of both, in uncertainty
which he most admired, and in trepida
tion how Betsy Squance would take it,
did he come to a decision and make his
election.
One cold, stormy night Joan and Jane
were sitting over their peat fire. They
owed their peat to Joe. He had lent his
horse and cart to draw it for them after
it had been cut and set up to dry, and
Joe had sent a man to cut their peat for
them. Joe himself had stacked it for
them.
The whole house was fragrant with the
smoke, for the wind that drove down the
glen sent puffs out of the chimney into the
room. It is said that consumption is un
known on Dartmoor. This is perhaps due
largely, if not wholly, to the turf smoke —
98 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
strongly antiseptic — that pervades every
dwelling.
The sisters were not speaking, each was
knitting a stocking for Joe — Joan one for
his right leg, Jane one for his left leg.
They had begun the task simultaneously,
and had got just the same distance with
each. Each sister was occupied with the
same thought, and that thought was — But
for my sister, I should be Joe's wife. My
sister stands between me and the man I
love.
And yet each innocent, generous heart
twinged at the thought; for each dearly
loved the other. The sisters lived in greater
comfort at Snaily House than would have
been possible elsewhere. Their little garden
brought forth all the vegetables they needed.
The moor provided them with fuel. They
kept a pig. They kept a cow. The moor
provided the cow with pasturage winter and
summer alike. The marshy portions of the
moor furnished rushes wherewith to thatch
their house, and those of cow and pig.
The hill-sides supplied a stack of bracken
that made the richest, softest bedding for
the cow. There was really very little that
they needed which was not furnished by the
moor. They made their own rush candles.
SNAILY HOUSE 99
They spun their own wool. They even
ground their own flour in a hand-mill, an
old tinner's pounding quern that they had
found lying near Whiteslade.
The sisters were startled by a knock at
the door; it was thrown open, and in
staggered Joe — much the worse for liquor.
" Come in, Thomas Over ! " he shouted ;
" I've won my bet."
Then he stumbled towards the fireplace.
" I've laid five shillings," he said, " with
Tom Over. He sez — sez he — you live on
snails, as did the old women. I sez — sez I
— you don't. Five shillings. Done. Five
shillings. Drat it! where be Tom Over
to?"
Then he threw himself down before the
fire, and began to chuckle.
"There bain't no snails here. We'll
drink that five shillin' out. That us will.
Thomas Over ! " he began to shout. Joan
looked at Jane in dismay, and Jane at Joan
in disgust.
The wind blew down the chimney and
carried a drift of smoke before it over the
prostrate man, and powdered him with white
ash-dust, light and white as snow.
"Tom Over!" he shouted again, "I
give y' leave to go all through the house,
ioo DARTMOOR IDYLLS
and look where you will, you'll find no pots
o' pickled slugs as in the ou'd women's time.
Tom Over ! out wi' them five shillings."
He laid his head on his arm — began
laughing and muttering to himself, and fell
asleep.
The sisters remained where seated, the
head of the inebriated man at the feet of
Jane, his boots at the feet of Joan. The
red glare of the glowing turf fire was on his
puffed, heavy face.
Joan stood up, went to the door, listened
without, and heard, far away, a voice call
ing ; then she shut the door, barred it, and
drew down a blind to prevent the light from
within shining forth and serving as a guide
to the lost, drunken Over.
That done, she came back to her place
and reseated herself. For more than an
hour the eyes of the sisters rested on the
man at their feet. There were still youth
and good looks in the face, there was some
thing finely moulded in the nose and chin,
but the fair picture had been drawn through
beer-slops, and its beauty was effaced. And
as each looked, the thought worked in each
brain — Supposing he had taken me, and I
had gone to be mistress of "The Fox
Brush"; then could I have withheld him
SNAILY HOUSE 101
from the evil course which he has taken ?
Could I have found in such a weak, easily
deflected character a stay for my soul, an
equivalent for the love of my dear sister, a
lot happier than this one, so peaceful in
Snaily House ?
And then rose up another thought in each
mind. How is it that I am not the wife of
this drunken sot? How is it that I have
been saved against myself? Had Joe asked
me to be his, inevitably I would have put
my hand in his, with a "Yea." But he
never did ask me that question which would
have altered the whole course of my life.
Why ? Because he never could resolve in
his own heart which of us sisters he cared
most for. But for the presence of my sister,
what a lot would have been mine ! — a lot of
disappointment in the man of my choice, of
vain struggles to restrain him from his evil
proclivity, of heartache, of sullen despair, of
shame and ruin; for what else can such a
course lead to but the loss of everything that
constitutes happiness, and the withdrawal of
prosperity from the house owning a drunken
master ?
The sisters held their breath with a catch.
Joe was moving — he was awake.
102 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
He raised himself on one elbow, thrust
his hand through his matted hair, and stared
dreamily, stupidly about him.
"Where be Tom Over to? I want my
five shillings."
Then he looked hard at Joan, next at
Jane.
"Lor' bless me!" said he. "Whativer
carr'd I here ? But it don't matter now I
be here. I remember, I came of a purpose.
There's my sister Bess, she's gone and took
Tom Over, and they be goin' to set up a
public to Post Bridge together — and "
he looked at one sister, then at the other.
" And — so, I reckon I must make up my
mind now — and take "
Then Joan rose — so did Jane.
And Joan clasping her sister round the
waist, and Jane throwing her arm round her
sister's neck, the two graceful girls stood
above the stupefied man, who tried vainly to
stagger to his feet. The red firelight glowed
in their fair faces, making the blush of anger
and annoyance deep in hue, deep as a
crimson mountain rose.
"I have made up my mind — I will
take "
Joan cut him short.
SNAILY HOUSE 103
"We also have made up our minds.
You will take neither of us. Leave this
house, join your drunken companion."
Then each sister spread her arms, and
sobbing, fell on the other's bosom, exclaim
ing — " Oh dear, dear sister, how can I ever
thank you enough — that you saved me from
— from myself?"
EPHRAIM'S PINCH
A LITTLE on one side of the track that
leads to Widecombe in the Moor, and that
branches from the main artery of travel
which runs from Tavistock to Moreton
Hampstead, and thence to Exeter, is an
ancient tenement in the midst of the waste,
called Runnage.
A word on the ancient tenements.
From time immemorial certain spots on
the moor have been favoured, as lying to the
sun, having shelter from the winds, as iflear
pure springs of water, and as possessing tracts
of somewhat deep soil. The first who settled
in these pleasant spots were primeval colonists
far away in the gloom that precedes history ;
but ever since, these sunny slopes have been
held by persons who claimed a prescriptive
right to the dwellings and the enclosures
around. The holders of these tenements
hold under the Prince of Wales. As little
105
106 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
trout are devoured by great trout, so has it
been on the moor. The Duchy of Corn
wall has bought up these freeholds when
ever it has had the chance. In 1344 there
were forty-four ; in the beginning of last
century the number had shrunk by ten, and
now is further reduced to ten. Singularly
enough, the owner of one of these is — the
Poor of Brixham.
Runnage lies in a very lonesome spot —
the hills that fold about it to the back and
west afford sufficient shelter for sycamores
to have grown to a considerable size —
sycamore, the one tree which will hold its
own anywhere.
The tenants of these holdings enjoy great
rights by custom. The heir of each and
every one, on the death of each and every
tenant, has by custom the privilege of
enclosing eight acres of the forest or waste
ground, paying therefor one shilling
annually to the Three Feathers ; and this
enclosure is called a new-take. No wonder
that the Duchy of Cornwall does all in its
power to rid itself of these encroaching
neighbours. The new-take walls have wrought
the destruction of the rude stone monuments ;
avenues of upright stones, circles, cromlechs,
kistvaens have been ruthlessly pillaged, used
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 107
as quarries which have been handy. In a
great many cases the largest upright stones
have been seized upon as gate-posts, or
thrown across the leats and rivers as bridges,
or have been utilised to prop up linhays, and
the lesser stones that perhaps commemorated
some insignificant tribesman have been left,
whilst the great menhir set up in honour of
his chief has disappeared. Sometimes the
builders of the new-take walls threw down
a great monolith with the intention of
breaking it up, and then abandoned it be
cause they found smaller stones more
handy ; sometimes they transported such
big stones part way to the new wall, and
cast them down, as being too heavy for their
arms to convey any further. The marvel is
that so much still remains after over a
thousand years of wanton ravage.
Runnage tenement-house is new. The
ancient farm dwelling has been rebuilt in
recent times, but at the time of our story
the old dwelling was standing. It was a
typical moor-house. A gateway in a high
wall of rude granite blocks built up without
mortar gave access to a paved courtyard,
very small, into which all the windows of
the house looked. Here also were the
outhouses, stables, pig-sties, the well-house,
io8 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
the peat store, the saddle and farm imple
ment houses. All opened inwards, all could
be reached with very little exposure. The
main door of the dwelling did not open into
the kitchen, but into a sort of barn in which
every sort of lumber was kept, with the
fowls roosting on the lumber. This served
as a work-house for the men on rainy or
foggy days ; here they could repair damaged
tools, hammer out nails and rivets, store
potatoes, nurse the sheep in " yeoning time,"
prepare the rushes for thatching. Here at
the end were heaped up high to the roof vast
masses of dry bracken to serve as bedding,
and in this, in bad weather, the children
played hide-and-seek, and constructed them
selves nests. At Runnage at one time lived
the substantial tenant, Quintin Creeber,
paying to the Crown a slight acknowledg
ment, and thriving on the produce of his
sheep and kine and horses. He tilled little
grain, grew no roots. There was always
grass or hay for his beasts. If the snow
lay on the ground deep, then only had he
recourse to the hayrick. What little grain
he grew was rye, and that was for the
household bread.
Quintin Creeber had a daughter, Cecily,
or as she was always called Sysly, a pretty
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 109
girl with warm complexion, like a ripe
apricot, very full soft brown eyes, and the
richest auburn hair. She was lithe, strong,
energetic ; she was Quintin's only child, his
three sons were dead. One had been killed
in a mine, one had died of scarlet fever, and
the third had fallen into the river in time of
flood, and had acquired a chill which had
carried him off.
Sysly would be the heir to Quintin — in
herit Runnage, his savings, and the right,
on her father's death, of enclosing another
eight acres of moor. On the loss of his sons,
Quintin had taken into his service one
Ephraim Weekes, a young man, broad-
shouldered, strongly built, noted as a con
structor of new-take walls. Ephraim had a
marvellous skill in moving masses of granite
which could not be stirred by three ordinary
men. It was all knack, he said, all done by
pinching, that is to say, by leverage. But
he used more than a lever — he employed
rollers as well. Without other than a ready
wit, and a keen estimation of weights and
forces drawn from experience, Ephraim was
able to move and get into place blocks
which two and even three other men would
avoid touching. He was not a tall man,
but was admirably set and proportioned.
i io DARTMOOR IDYLLS
He had fair hair and blue-grey eyes, a grave,
undemonstrative manner, and a resolute
mouth.
Instead of wearing hair about his face, it
was Ephraim's custom to shave lip and
cheek and chin; the hair of his head he
wore somewhat long, except only on two
occasions when he had his hair mown by
the blacksmith at Widecombe; one of
these was Christmas, the other midsummer.
Then for a while he was short-cropped, but
his hair grew rapidly again.
He was a quiet man who did not speak
much, reserved with the farmer, and not
seeking companionship at the nearest ham
let of Post Bridge, where was the tavern, the
social heart of the region.
Ephraim was the younger son of a small
farmer at Walna, a house with a bit of land
that had been parted off from Runnage
tenement at some time in the tenth century.
Walna could not maintain four men, beside
the farmer and his wife, consequently the
youngest, Ephraim, was obliged to seek
work away from the parental house, and he
had been employed repairing fallen walls,
and constructing new ones, till Quintin
Creeber had engaged him as a labourer on
his farm. Not for one moment had it
EPHRAIM'S PINCH in
occurred to the owner of Runnage that this
might lead to results other than those of
business between master and man — that it
was possible Ephraim might aspire to Sysly,
and his daughter stoop to love the labouring
man.
It was quite true that in the matter of
blood the Creebers and the Weekes were
equal, but a moorman is too practical a
man to consider blood ; he looks to position,
to money. The husband he had in his eye
for his daughter was a man who had capital
wherewith to develop the resources of the
farm, to enlarge the new-takes, to break up
fresh soil, to buy well-bred horses, and
double the number of oxen, and quadruple
that of sheep kept on the farm and the moor
over which he had free right of common.
Quintin would have hesitated to take into
his employ Killeas, that is to say, Archelaus
Weekes, the eldest son of his neighbour at
Walna, a handsome fellow, with a song or a
joke always in his mouth, who loved to romp
with the girls, who liked his glass at the
tavern ; but Ephraim was different ; what
girl would care for him, plain, silent, without
wickedness (i. e. mischief) in him, who never
made or understood a joke ?
Sysly was aged seventeen when Ephraim,
ii2 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
a man of twenty-three, came into the service
of Quintin Creeber. He served faithfully
for seven years, and never gave the farmer
cause to reproach him for inactivity, was
ever docile, obliging, and industrious. Such
a man was not to be found elsewhere ; such
a combination of great strength, skill, and
sobriety. Creeber esteemed himself most
lucky in having such a servant. Ephraim
did more than two other men, and never
asked for increase of wage, never grumbled
at the tasks imposed upon him.
When the seven years were over, then Sysly
was twenty-four, and Ephraim was thirty.
There had come suitors for the girl — among
them the eldest son of the farmer Weekes,
the light-hearted, handsome Killeas. She
had refused him. The young farmer of
Belever had sued for her, and had been
rejected, greatly to the wonder of Quintin.
Now when the seven years were over, then
Ephraim, in his wonted quiet, composed
manner, said to the owner of Runnage :
" Maister, me and your Sysly likes one
another, and we reckon us '11 make one.
What sez you to that, maister ? "
Quintin stared, fell back in astonishment,
and did not answer for three minutes, whilst
he gave himself time for consideration. He
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 113
did not want to lose a valuable servant. He
had no thought of giving him his daughter.
So he said : " Pshaw ! you're both too young.
Wait another seven years, and if you be in
the mind then, you and she, speak of it
again." Ephraim took Quintin at his word,
without a remonstrance, without an attempt
to persuade him to become more yielding.
He remained on another seven years.
Then Sysly was aged thirty-one, and he —
thirty-seven. On that very day fourteen
years on which he had entered the house at
Runnage, exactly when the seven years were
concluded, at the end of which Farmer
Quintin had bid him speak of the matter
again, then Ephraim went in quest of him,
with the intent of again asking for Sysly.
He had not wavered in his devotion to her.
She had refused every suitor — for him. He
found the old man in the outer barn or
entrance to the house ; he was filling a sack
with rye.
" I say — Ephraim," he spoke as Weekes
entered. "There's the horse gone lame,
and we be out of flour. What is to be done ?
Sysly tells me there bain't a crumb of flour
more in the bin, and her wants to bake to
once."
" Master," said Ephraim, " I've waited as
i
ii4 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
you said this second seven years. The time
be up to-day. Me and Sysly, us ain't a-
changed our minds, not one bit. Just the
same, only us likes one another a thousand
times dearer nor ever us did afore. Will y'
now give her to me ? "
" Look y' here, Ephraim. Carry this sack
o' rye on your back to Widecombe mill,
and bring it home full o' flour — and I will."
Then he hastily went out.
He had set the man an impossible task.
It was five miles to the mill, and the road a
mountainous one. But he had put him off
— that was all he cared for.
In the room was Sysly. She had heard
all.
She came out ; she saw Ephraim tying
up the neck of the sack.
" Help her up on my back, Sysly/' said
he.
" Eph ! — you do not mean it ! You can't
do it. It's too much."
"He said — Carry this sack to Wide-
combe mill, and bring 'n back full o' flour,
and you shall have her."
"It was a joke."
u I don't understand a joke. He said it.
He's a man of his word, straight up and
down."
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 115
Sysly helped the sack up. But her heart
misgave her.
"Eph!" she said, u my father only said
that because he knew you couldn't do it."
" I can do it — when I see you before
me."
" How do y' mean, Eph ? "
" * Bring back the sack o' flour, and you
shall have her.1 Sys ! I'd carr' the world on
my back for that."
He was strong, broad-shouldered, and he
started with his burden.
Sysly watched him with doubt and un
rest.
Was it possible that he could reach
Widecombe with such a burden? If he
reached the mill, could he carry back the
sack of flour ? She watched him down the
hill, and across the Wallabrook that gave its
name Walna1 to his father's farm. Then
ensued an ascent, and she saw him toiling
up the hill of Sousson's Moor with the sack
on his back.
Was there any avail in his undertaking
this tremendous exertion ?
Surely her father, if he had intended to
give his consent, would not have made it
1 Now corrupted into Warner.
ii6 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
conditional on the discharge of such a task !
Surely, if he had designed to make Ephraim
his son-in-law, he would not have subjected
him to such a strain !
Was it not probable that Ephraim would
do himself an injury in attempting this im
possible task ?
Cicely knew the resolution, the love of the
silent, strong-hearted man ; she felt assured
that he would labour on under his burden,
toil up the steep slopes — struggle, with per
spiration streaming, with panting lungs and
quivering muscles, up the great ridge
of Hamledon — that he would pursue his
purpose till nature gave way. And for
what ?
She did not share his confidence in the
good faith of her father.
She watched Ephraim till the tears so
clouded her eyes that she could see the
patient, faithful man no longer.
Hours passed.
The evening came on; and Quintin
Creeber returned to the house.
"Where is Ephraim?'' he asked. "I
want to have the mare blistered — she can't
put a foot to the ground."
"Ephraim is gone to Widecombe,"
answered Cicely.
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 117
" To Widecombe ? Who gave him
leave ? "
" Father, you told him to carry the sack."
Old Creeber stood aghast.
" To carry the sack o' rye ! "
" You told him he was to take that to the
mill, and bring back flour."
" It was nonsense. I never meant it. It
was a put-off. He cant do it. No man
can. He'll chuck the sack down on the
way and come back without it."
" He'll never do that, father."
Quintin Creeber was much astonished.
The man had taken him at his word. The
more fool he. He had attempted the im
possible. Well, there was this advantage.
When Weekes returned without the flour or
rye, he, Quintin, would be able to laugh at
him and say : "You have not fulfilled the
condition, therefore — no Cicely for you."
Quintin Creeber walked out of his farm
buildings and went to the Widecombe
road.
" Pshaw ! " said he. " The man is an ass.
He couldn't do it. He should have known
that, and not have attempted it."
As he said these words to himself, he dis
cerned in the evening glow over Sousson's
Moor a figure descending the path or road.
u8 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" By gum ! " said the farmer. " It is
Ephraim. He's never done it — he has
come back beat. Turned half-way. How
the chap staggers ! By crock ! He's down,
he's fallen over a stone. The weight is too
much for him descending. I swear — if I
didn't know he were as temperate as — as —
no one else on the moor, I'd say he were
drunk, he reels so. There he be now at the
bridge. Hah! he has set the sack down,
and is leaning — his head on it. I reckon
he's just about dead beat. The more fool
he. He should ha' known I never meant it.
What — he's coming on again. Up-hill !
That'll try him. Gum ! A snail goes
faster. He has to halt every three steps.
He daren't set down the sack, he'd never get
her on his back again. There he is — down
on one knee — kneeling to his prayers be
he ! or taking his breath ? He's up again,
and crawling on. Well, I reckon this is a
pretty bit of a strain for Ephraim, up this
steep ascent wi' a sack o' flour on his back,
and four to five miles behind him."
The farmer watched the man as he toiled
up the road, step by step ; it seemed as if each
must be the last, and he must collapse, go
down in a heap at the next. Slowly, however,
he forged on — till he came up to Quintin.
EPHRAIM'S PINCH 119
Then the yeoman saw his face. Ephraim
was haggard, his eyes starting from his head ;
he breathed hoarsely — like one snoring ; and
there was froth on his lips.
Quintin Creeber put his hand under the
sack.
" By gum ! " said he. " Flour ! "
It was even so. That man had carried the
burden of rye to the mill, and had come
back with it in the condition of flour.
Half supporting the sack, the farmer
attended his man, as he stumbled forward,
turned out of the road, and took the track
to Runnage.
Ephraim could not speak. He looked
out of his great starting eyes at the master,
and moved his lips, but foam, not words,
formed on them. They were purple,
cracked, and bleeding.
So they went on till they reached the farm.
Then, in the outer chamber, without a
word Ephraim dropped the sack, and sank
against it and pointed to Sysly, who appeared
in the door.
" Gammon ! " said Quintin. " You
weren't such a fool as to think to have she ?
Her's not for you — not though you've took
the sack and brought 'n back again. Sysly
— yours — never ! "
120 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
The man could not speak. He sank,
slipped down, and fell before the sack, that
partly held him up. His head dropped
forward on his breast.
" Look up, Ephraim. Don't be a fool,"
said the yeoman.
He was past looking up. He was dead.
On the old Ordnance map of 1809 I see
that the steep ascent up which Weekes
made his last climb, laden with the sack of
rye flour, is marked — " Ephraim's Pinch."
As a moorman said : " That was a pinch
for Ephraim — such a climb with such a
weight after nine miles; but there was for
he a worser pinch, when old Creeber said,
' It is all for nought. You shan't have she.'
That pinched Ephraim's heart, and pinched
the life out of he."
But I observe that on the new Ordnance
of 1886 " Ephraim's Pinch" is omitted.
Can it be that the surveyors did not think
the name worth preserving ? Can it be that
Ephraim and his pinch are forgotten on the
moor ? Alas ! — time with her waves washes
out the writing on the sands. May my
humble pen serve to preserve the memory
of Ephraim and his Pinch,
LITTLE DIXIE
THE western face of Dartmoor stands up
boldly from the green rolling surface of well-
parked and pasture land on the limestone
and slate. It springs into the air very much
like a seventh wave, and is tossed at points
into serrated masses of granite, grey or
white, as though the crest of the moor like
a billow had broken into foam.
Beyond this long wave lies the cloven
valley of the Tavy, that comes down from
the central table-land of deep and fathomless
bog, the great reservoir and urn whence are
spilled the Taw, the Tavy, the Ockment, and
the Dart.
The great Oriental rivers, Pison that com
passed the land where was much gold,
Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, flowed out
of Paradise, the garden of all delights, but
these four Occidental rivers issue from an
utterly desolate, barren, uninhabited wilder-
121
122 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
ness, which is visited by no bird, inhabited
by no insect.
The four great Eastern rivers flowed out
of Paradise into the bare world without the
gates; the four Western streams leap out
of a barren wilderness into the Garden of
England.
Up the western slope of the great wave
sweeping nearly two thousand feet into the
sky is a subsidiary wave of lesser ranges
rising on the back of this main billow ; and
the southernmost of these is called Doe Tor,
on the maps, originally Daur Tor, the Hill
of Waters, for the rocky mass springs out
of a wide stretch of bogs, and is enfolded by
a stream that dances in many white falls
from ledge to ledge in a "goyle" that in
remote ages, and down through historic
times to our own, has been " streamed," that
is to say, turned over and tossed into the air,
and its gravel passed through water, to force
the granite sand and pounded crystalline
rubble to deliver up its tin.
When the wind blows from the east, then
the air is full of moaning, for it tears its way
through the rock castles and crag towers,
the granite windows and unclosed natural
doors, piping, screaming, sobbing, muttering,
growling — all these sounds at a distance are
LITTLE DIXIE 123
combined into one mighty organ note, and
far away to the west " the Roar of the
Moor" is audible.
When the wind is in the east, another
phenomenon becomes noticeable to those on
the cultivated land westward, and that is
" the Beam of the Moor." This beam con
sists of a broad belt of fog, greyish-brown,
not dense in texture, nor deep in colour. It
lies behind the crests of the great upheaved
wave, it spreads above them in vaporous
streamers, which streamers are locally called
"the Strome." What the derivation of
Beam is is not quite clear, but probably it
means the same as Bar. It is perhaps like
the great oaken bar put across the house-door
in olden times, and verily when the Beam
lies on the eastern horizon, the door of
Dartmoor is shut. One thinks more than
twice before ascending its flanks and facing
the raging blast that is sweeping, nay mow
ing the great upland region, as with a scythe.
Under Doe Tor stands a farm. A few
diminutive firs and twisted thorns form a
shelter on one side. The house has
shrugged its shoulders and drawn in its head
behind turf banks and moorstone walls, and
cowers under the shelter of the dwarfed trees.
Above it, eastwards, is a "clatter" of granite
124 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
blocks, a chaos of large and small rocks
thrown down and cast about by the last
glacier as it withdrew from the moor, ten
thousand — twenty thousand — any number
of thousand years before history began.
On the other side of the farm are green
meadows. The streamers in ancient times
burrowed in the water threads that ran down
from the upland, deepening their channels
so considerably that they became effectual
drains. Doe Tor Farm stands in the tongue
of land between two such converging streams
with their artificially deepened beds, and is
thus delivered from morass, and rendered a
dry, pleasant slope that catches and enjoys
and utilises every sunbeam that slides over
the moor flank.
Hard at hand is a brook of the purest
crystal water. Available everywhere are
stones to be piled up for defence against
weather, and to make enclosures for cattle.
Just beyond the door or entrance to the
tiny court before the farm lies an octagonal
mass of granite, with a socket sunk in
the midst, the base of one of the many
rude crosses that anciently stood on the
moor, marking ways, serving as boundaries,
and often as places for prayer to moor-
dwellers when weather forbade their
LITTLE DIXIE 125
making the Sunday and festival journey
to church.
To reach Lydford, the nearest village with
church, might have been risky at times, for
at the bottom of the valley, drained into by
these lateral streams, and dripped into
leisurely by the morasses, flows the Lyd, to
be crossed by stepping-stones, and these only
when the river is not swollen by flood. After
a heavy downpour the stream rises very
rapidly and comes down with a swirl, cover
ing the stones — on such occasions they
cannot be used.
Over a long shoulder of moor lies a way
to another farm named Redever, in a situa
tion even more difficult of access. The writer
remembers some twenty-five years ago being
there and giving a coin to one of the wild
shock-headed children that ran about in the
kitchen. The child looked at the piece of
money, turned it round, and rushed to her
mother to ask what it was. It was the first
coin of the realm she had ever seen.
One night the wind was in the east, and the
moan and thunder of the wind-tide breaking
against and over the serrated crags to the
east of Doe Tor was almost deafening ; gusts
came hissing among the stunted spruce, and
beating down the chimney with a guffaw like
126 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
that of a practical joker, delighted to be able
to scatter the glowing embers over the stone
floor. By the fire were seated Oliver
Whiddon and his wife, and a little back in
the room, rocking his chair, a young man of
about twenty, an intelligent youth with open
face, and a look of decision in his eyes and
mouth.
This was " Young Oliver," the only son,
indeed the only child of the farmer and his
wife. It had been the ambition and expecta
tion of the Whiddons that their son would
succeed to the farm, after having served them
as their workman for an indefinite number of
years. But that impetuosity and love of
change which characterises the Englishman,
which distinguishes him from the German
and the Frenchman, uprooted young Oliver
very speedily. As soon as he was able to
earn money for himself he left Doe Tor and
went to Mary Tavy, where mines had been
opened that yielded silver-lead ; and he be
came a miner, with all the love of adventure
and of speculation inherent in the miner.
His work was not many miles distant from
the paternal home, and he returned every
Saturday to Doe Tor, to spend his Sunday
with his parents, but not to spend his savings
there, as Doe Tor was precisely the place
LITTLE DIXIE 127
where it would be impossible to get rid of
money otherwise than by throwing it into
the morasses.
He was a quiet, sober youth, very shrewd,
and he hoarded his earnings, or rather gave
them to his mother to hoard for him.
The way by which Oliver the younger
returned weekly from Mary Tavy was by
Redever. His walk was wholly across moors,
past the cairns raised over dead heroes at
an unknown time, and across ancient lines
of enclosure, when made no one could tell,
nor by whom set up. Lines so ancient
that the moss and peat had for the most
part swallowed them, and they became dis
tinguishable only in the slant rays of the
setting sun. Oliver Junior did not pass a
house since leaving his mine till he came to
Redever. There he was on high ground, not
far from the source of a streamlet that
poured its liquid light over a granite lip, and
spread itself over the path or track to the
farm, and was too shallow to be provided with
stepping-stones, and too insignificant to be
bridged.
There, usually for the first time since he
left his mine, did he hear a human voice, and
that was one quite other from those he was
accustomed to hear. It was the voice of a
128 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
child singing over her work — singing, shrill,
clear, with a twinkle in the voice and a bound
in the tone, so full of life, so full of joy that
Oliver felt his heart dance within him respon
sive to the song.
Not on every Saturday afternoon or even
ing did it chance to Oliver to see the singer ;
he could not see her on Monday morning,
for then he left his home before daybreak.
Oliver always listened for the voice, always
looked for the singer ; and that was a plea
sant Saturday evening to him when he saw
Little Dixie — the singer — filling her pitcher
at the lip of the stream, or coming from the
turftye with her arms full of turves.
Little Dixie was the only child of Bartho
lomew Gloyne, the farmer at Redever. She
had been baptized Dionysia, but her father,
every one who knew her, considered that
Dionysia was too much of a name for such
a mite of a child, and she was called Little
Dixie by her father, and by such persons as
knew of her existence. The dog knew her
by no other name. When her father said,
" Go to Dixie," he ran to her, fawned and
licked her face and hands. The fowls seemed
to know her by that name — for when she
brought them grain, she called to them,
" Here be Dixie and your meat ! " The pig
LITTLE DIXIE 129
knew her by that name. When she carried
the sow her pail of wash, it was the child's
sport to knock at the sty door and call,
" Who is here come ? " No answer. " Be it
Mr. Gloyne ? " No answer. " Be it James
Perkin ? " — that was the name of the only
labourer retained at Redever. No answer.
" Be it your own dear Little Dixie ? "
" Umph ! " grunted the pig ; whereupon the
sty door was thrown open and the contents
of the pail poured forth.
Rarely, most rarely, did Oliver have the
chance of a word with Little Dixie.
Dixie was an active child. Her mother
had died when she was seven. Since then
she had been the only woman in Redever.
She did everything for her father. She
mended his garments, she knitted his hose.
She washed the household linen ; she cooked
the dinner. She never lighted the fire, for on
the moor the fire is never let go out. The
writer knows one fire that, it is boasted, has
burnt for over a hundred years, without
having been extinguished and relaid.
On the raw, blustering night of our slight
tale, the old folk were toasting their noses
and knees over the peat fire, and the son was
swinging in the chair. He was thinking.
That same day as he returned past Redever,
130 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
he had heard a strange voice, a voice harsh,
denunciatory, and with neither elasticity, nor
sparkle, nor youth in it. It was not engaged
in singing, but in scolding.
" I reckon Gloyne he's been gwan and
took a maidservant/' said Oliver.
And now as he rocked, he mused. Whom
could that maid have been scolding ? Could
it have been James Perkin ? No ; he had
seen James going after the sheep. Surely no
servant would scold Little Dixie? Who
could the owner of that voice have been ?
And whom could she have been letting out
at?
As these questions turned in Oliver's mind,
the door was thrown open, and in the entrance
stood — Little Dixie.
The wind rushed into the room and threw
the embers into a white glare.
" I wish to know," said the girl, " be you
a- want in' to have a maid ? "
" What — Dixie ! come in," called old
Oliver, and young Oliver thrust back his
chair in amazement.
u Aye, I be Dixie sure-ly, and I want to
know, be you lookin' out for a maid ? "
"A maid?"
" Yes ; vayther's gone and made a mess
of hisself, and so I've corned away."
LITTLE DIXIE 131
u Made a mess of hisself — your father ? "
"Terrible," said Dixie. "He's gwan and
married again. It's shameful, and me kept
his house for 'n since I wor seven, that's seven
years agone. All these seven years I've
washed, and baked, and kept all vitty, and
fed the pig and done everything for X and
now he's gwan and done this shameful — and
made a mess of hisself."
"Have you left home?" asked Mrs.
Whiddon.
" I reckon I've been turned out," answered
Little Dixie. "Thicky old cat my vayther
hev a-brought home — meaning my mother
as he calls her — but she bain't no mother to
me, — her and I don't agree. Her wants to
take the washing, and the pigging, and the
cowing, and the cooking, and the baking,
and the turving out o' my hands — and I sed,
sed I — I wouldn't stand it. I've washed and
baked and pigged for my father these seven
years — ever sin' mother died, and I won't
hev no alteration. So her just took me by
the shoulders and dra'ed me out over the
drexle (threshold)."
Little Dixie drew nearer the fire. " And
now I sees it's all up at home ; so what I
wants to know is, do'y wish to have a maid ?
and what's your wages ? "
132 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" But what does your father say ? "
" Say ! Poor old man. He can't say
nothink. He sits and cries and wipes his
nose — 'tis piteous to behold, and he be
gettin' the end o1 his nose quite raw wi'
wipin' — he's cried such a lot, because this
here cat o' a wife o' his lets on at me so.
There's nothing like a little scald cream for
a sore nose," added Dixie, confidentially.
" Now, do'y want a maid ? and what's your
wages ? "
The child was but fourteen. She hardly
looked that, so fair was she, so silver silken-
white was her hair, so open and blue
were her eyes, so wholly childlike was her
form.
Then young Oliver started up.
" Little Dixie ! " he said. " If you stay
here will you sing ? "
"I reckon I shall. I always did sing till
that woman came."
He ran to a box, threw it open, pulled
out a little sack in which jingled coin, and
tossed it into Dixie's arms. " There," said
he, tc take of it what you will. You stay
here — work and sing for father and mother,
till — in three years I bid you work and sing
for me."
At that moment, in at the door came
LITTLE DIXIE 133
Bartholomew Gloyne. He looked about
him and said — " There you are, Dixie.
Come back. I have run after you. My
wife didn't mean it. She did not intend to
turn you out of the house. Only, you
know, her must be top and leader in all, and
can't let you, a child, do what you likes."
"Vayther," said the girl, "her turned
me out and called me bad names."
" Her did not intend you to go, but you
must come back now with I."
" I am not coming back."
" My wife — her said I was to force you."
" I won t be forced."
"But I am your father — I beg and pray
you to come. Didn't you work for me, and
tend me, and care for all my linen and meat
ever since your mother's death r "
" I know I did."
"Well, and how can you have the heart
to leave me now ? "
" Vayther, you should ha' thought o' that
afore you went and made a mess o' yourself.
Now it's done. I reckon you promised to
honour and obey."
" I reckon I did som'ut o' the kind."
" Well, you must go back, then, to she.
You can't turn she out o' the door, as her
turned I."
134 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
" No ; I s'pose I can't. But you should
consider me."
" It's you, father, as ort to ha' considered
I afore you went to church wi' she. I
won'ner now you warn't ashamed to do
it ! "
Then Oliver Whiddon the younger
stepped forward, and slapped the forlorn and
perplexed man on his shoulder.
" Look here, guv'nor," said he, " the
little maid has come here and axed father
and mother to take she as their servant, and
they hev agreed for three years. And after
that — I've axed she to come and keep house
for me, and sing and work for me, and make
me happy."
"So, father," said Little Dixie, with a
curtsey, " you see — I'm engaged."
The man looked disconsolately at his
child.
" And, father," she continued, showing the
bag, " here's my wage."
The string became relaxed, unbound, and
the money — all in silver — the savings of
three years, poured forth in a glittering
stream over the floor.
" Lawk ! " said Gloyne, putting his hand
to his head, " I didn't know your vally till
now, and now I've lost you."
LITTLE DIXIE 135
i( But I have known it for long," said
Oliver ; " and a right wit has brought Little
Dixie from one who couldn't value her to
one who — sweep up all that silver — knows
that she is priceless."
JONAS COAKER
ALMOST in the centre of Dartmoor is a
singular depression. The hills fall away
from all sides towards what seems to have
been, at a vastly remote period, the bed of a
lake. Nevertheless there is a fissure — a
valley to the south through which the Dart,
that traverses this basin, has sawn its way.
It has had to rasp its bed through a dyke of
rock just above that same Snaily House
which has been already described, and till
that dyke was sawn through, the basin was
occupied by a sheet of rippling water.
Now, however, that trough is encroached on
by farms and fields, a tavern, a church, a
Dissenting chapel, and a pair of grand
porter's lodges, one on each side of a gate —
leading to nowhere. • In the time of the
Prince Regent, great and chimerical ideas of
the importance of Dartmoor filled certain
heads, and a certain Squire Hullett resolved
138 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
on building himself a stately mansion some
mile or two up this basin, and began by
planting a strip of beech beside the road,
and by constructing two porters' lodges.
Nothing further was done ; even the road
up to the site on which his mansion was to
rise was not made ; and now no one knows
exactly where that site was to be.
There is one very interesting feature in
this basin in the midst of the moors. It is
traversed from east to west by three roads,
all belonging to different epochs of
civilisation.
First of all, there runs athwart it a
paved causeway, that crosses Dartmoor from
Tavistock to Bovey, and was in connection
with the Fosse Way, that great diagonal line
of communication between Cornwall and
Exeter, to Lincoln, and thence by Doncaster
to York, and so northwards. It was older
than the Roman domination. It can be
distinctly seen on Dartmoor, and a section
at Post Bridge, where it is now in process
of being demolished for the building of a
wall. It is about six feet wide, and is paved
in an arc, the pavement laid on a bed of
smaller stones.
Next comes a road of a different kind,
un paved, of no construction whatever, cut
JONAS COAKER 139
by the hoofs of the pack-horses that tra
velled over it throughout the Middle Ages,
and looking like a trench drawn by a huge
plough in the face of the moor. That old
pack-horse road is as completely disused
now as is the old paved causeway.
Thirdly, we have the macadamised high
way maintained by the County Council,
smooth as a bowling-green, drawn out over
the face of the moor like an unrolled
measuring-tape.
But the existence of these three roads is
not all that is interesting in this basin.
The hills around are, and were still more
so, crowded with the remains of prehistoric
peoples. Every slope was occupied by a
village, surrounded by a ring of wall.
Every height is crowned by the cairns and
the rude stone coffins or kistvaens of their
dead. In almost every field, along almost
every track-way, may be picked up their
flint chips, scrapers, and arrow-heads.
Now many of these ancient settlements
have been converted into plantations or fields,
modern walls have been constructed out of
the ruined bee-hive huts, on top of the
ancient outer wall of defence. Nevertheless,
a great number of these remains still cover
the sides of the hills ; and a word on those
140 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
who occupied such villages will not here
come amiss.
It may be premised that every sort of
theory has been propounded relative to these
clusters of circular huts. They were shelters
from wolves ; they were pounds for sheep ;
they were the habitations of tin miners.
They were Druidical circles ; they were
imitations of the constellations, forming
temples for sidereal worship; they were
mediaeval miners' cottages, they are compara
tively modern hovels.
The earth is the great book of reference
for history. It must be turned over before
history can be read. Theories are mere air
till established by the pick and shovel.
Now pick and shovel have been employed
on these villages of bee-hive huts, and they
have revealed something quite unexpected
• — that there dwelt on Dartmoor at a vastly
remote epoch, before the written history of
Great Britain begins, an extremely rude
population in extraordinary numbers, living
in the most savage manner, without the know
ledge of metals, and with very little, and that
very rude, pottery. In the centre of each hut
was the fire. The door, always to the south,
was so low that the hovel had to be entered
on all fours. A segment of the circular hut
JONAS COAKER 141
on the higher side was raised as a dais or
platform, with curb-stones, and was bedded
with heather and rush, to form a seat by day
and serve as a couch by night. All baking
and roasting was done in the same manner as
Catlin describes as among the Assiniboyne
Indians. A hole was dug in the clay floor a
foot or eighteen inches deep ; this was the
oven. Into it smooth pebbles from the river
heated red-hot were put, along with the meat
to be roasted. If water had to be boiled, a
skin was made to line the hole ; this was filled
with water, and then the red-hot stones were
thrown into it. Bed-places, hearth-stones,
roasting-holes, roasters, remain where left
thousands of years ago, before that Caesar
had crossed into Britain, aye, and before the
Britons had come over and occupied our isle.
Rising out of the marsh — once a lake — is
a gravelly margin, and there this ancient
people sat chipping flints brought from afar,
to shape them into arrow-heads and scrapers,
the latter for the dressing of the skins in
which they clothed themselves. And there,
where they formed their tools, perhaps three
thousand years before the history of our
isle begins, may be gathered their broken
tools and the chips of flint they cast aside as
unprofitable.
142 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
On a gentle incline descending towards
the marsh is a singular circle of trees, sur
rounded by a wall ; this enclosure goes by
the name of Ring Hill. It is, in fact, an
old walled village that has had the huts
within the wall destroyed. The stones from
these primeval bee-hive habitations have
been removed and utilised for the con
struction of a quaint little farmstead, en
closed within rectangular walls to screen its
windows and door from the hurricane and
snow and hail. There has been a sort of
attempt at picturesqueness in the little habit
ation, for it has been given pointed windows.
The court-yard is paved with great slabs
of granite, the sheds are buttressed with long
posts of the same material laid at an incline
to prop up the mortarless walls. Very
white geese waddle about, dip their yellow
bills into the water that occupies a trough
dug out of a huge granite block. The
white and crimson saxifrage has made a
home of the walls, and rooted itself in every
fissure between the stones, and the yellow
stonecrop shows as a mass of sunshine on the
roof. A rowan, or as it is called in Devon
a witch-beam, grows near the cottage, so
also a sycamore.
There is no road to this little farm, hardly
JONAS COAKER 143
a path. To reach it one must wade through
water, and skip from tuft of rush to hum
mock of grass in the watery morass that in
tervenes between the road and the farm, a
distance of half-a-mile.
On the way one stops to pick the poten-
tilla that the goose loves so well, to dis
entangle the pink smothering bind-weed
from the gorse-bush it is strangling, to look
for the nest of the ring-ousel that we have
started. But should the time be winter,
then the marsh is scarce less glorious in
colour than in summer. The mosses run
the change from green to crimson, to gold,
to snow-white ; the surface is one wondrous
carpet shot with the most varied and yet
harmonious colours.
In Ring Hill homestead lived for some
years a remarkable man, named Jonas Coaker,
and there he died in February 1890.
I visited him in 1888. He was born in
1 80 1, so that he had almost reached his
eighty-ninth year when he died. For some
time he had been stone blind, and he was
tended by an old woman who kept house
for him. He was very poor, but patient,
gentle, and uncomplaining.
When I saw him, he had but just been
got down-stairs, and the old man was seated
144 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
in an ancient leathern, high-backed chair.
The light from the little window illumined
his pale, finely-cut, intelligent face, which
must have been handsome when he was
young, and when the soul could look out of
the windows, and when the teeth had not
fallen from the gums. Now the golden
bowl was cracked, and the daughters of
music were low, and the pitcher broken at
the fountain.
Jonas was considered, and considered him
self, to be a poet. Alas ! some persons con
ceive themselves to be inspired with the
divine spirit of poesy if they can make cow
rhyme with bow-wow, and kitchen with pitch
ing. Jonas, it must be admitted, was a
sorry poet, really was no better than an indif
ferent rhymster. Of poetic fire, of imagin
ation, he had none, but he could knock lines
together that jingled like horse-bells, and
these pleased the unexacting ears of the
moorland men.
Some years ago, Dartmoor was chosen as
a field for military operations. Troops were
sent down to camp on the moor, and there
execute manoeuvres, and conduct sham
fights.
It was an unfortunate experiment. That
year happened to be one of extraordinary
JONAS COAKER 145
wet. The troops arrived, camps were
formed, tents pitched, all was prepared,
when the rain descended, the windows of
heaven were opened and forgotten to be shut
again all that summer.
The horses floundered in bogs. The men
were drenched to the bone ; accoutrements
became sodden, boots resolved themselves
into pulp, weapons became rusty, gunpowder
would not ignite, tempers waxed ferocious.
On this occasion Jonas Coaker printed a
number of his " poems," and went about
among officers and privates selling them.
The cost was but trifling, and he realised
a comfortable sum. Owing to the never-
ceasing rain, the soldiers had nothing to do
but sit in their tents swearing ; and Jonas
Coaker's effusions were gladly purchased
and even read, because there was nothing
else to be got, in mid-moor, in mid-down
pour.
On that occasion a company of High
landers had a bad experience. Farmers'
wives and daughters came to the camp
offering Devonshire cream. The High
landers eagerly purchased, and considering
what they purchased to be mere curd, each
man consumed as much cream at a sitting
as if it were broase or curd. The consequence
146 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
was that the whole company was down with
a bilious attack, and the surgeon had to dose
the entire kilted body of warriors with blue
pill. Racked with headache, with yellow
faces and orange-coated tongues, the Sawny
brothers languidly cast their pennies to
Jonas, and bought his poems, and read them
only because too racked with bile to be able
to read anything else, nor were they in a
condition to appreciate the merits or demerits
of what they read.
When I visited the old blind " poet " — let
us call him jongleur, or jingler of rhymes —
I was collecting the folk ballads and songs
of the West of England. I found his mem
ory stocked rather with his own productions
than with traditional minstrelsy. However,
he was able to give me a couple of ancient
ballads ; one was only recollected because he
had recomposed it, and was proud to recite
the original and place his own performance
beside it for comparison. The alchymist
turned base metal into gold. Alas ! in this
case it was the fine gold resolved into mere
dross. One ballad, however, he had not re
written, and very interesting it was. It re
lated to the Commonwealth, and the exclusion
of organ and musical instruments from the
service of God. I was able also to recover
JONAS COAKER 147
the melody to which it was sung, and that
was of the same date. The ballad began —
"All ye that love to hear
Music performed in air,
Pray listen, and give ear
To what I shall perpend.
Concerning music, who'd —
If rightly understood —
Not find 'twould do him good
To hearken and attend."
It proceeds to extol the church music and
church musicians of Brixham, and then to
relate how a new minister
" In office and in gown
Strove to put singing down."
Then the ballad writer goes on to argue with
this new-light divine —
" Go question Holy Writ,
And you will find in it,
That seemly 'tis and fit,
To praise and hymn the Lord,
On cymbal and on lute,
On organ and on flute,
With voices sweet, that suit,
All in a fair concord.
" In Samuel you may read
How one was troubled,
Was troubled indeed,
Who crown and sceptre bore ;
An evil spirit lay
On his mind both night and day,
That would not go away,
And vexed him very sore."
148 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
The ballad writer proceeds to relate how
that Saul was advised to send for the son
of Jesse —
" Now when that David, he
King Saul had come to see,
And played merrily
Upon his stringed harp,
The devil all in speed,
With music ill agreed,
From Saul, the King, he fleed,
Impatient to depart.
" Now there be creatures three,
As you may plainly see,
With music can't agree
Upon this pleasant earth,
The swine, the fool, the ass,
And so — we let it pass,
And sing, O Lord, Thy praise
The while that we have breath."
The self-laudation of the minstrels, their
placing themselves on so high a pedestal,
and the kick over of the preacher who does
not value their performance into company
with the Devil, the swine, and the ass, is
vastly droll, and perhaps not a little charac
teristic of village musicians all Christendom
through.
Jonas Coaker was at one time landlord of
"The Warren Inn," said to be the loftiest
situated road-side tavern in England. It
stood on a piece of land which the owner
regarded as his property through the right
JONAS COAKER 149
of squatting. It had this disadvantage, that
it stood on the south side of the road, and
was somewhat cheerless, facing the bluster
ing northern gales, and with the sun never
entering the rooms. Unhappily, a fire broke
out, and the tavern was burnt down. The
landlord determined to take advantage of
the catastrophe, and rebuild in a more con
genial situation, on the opposite side of the
highway.
Masons, plasterers, carpenters, hod-men
worked away, and the proprietor had pretty
well expended all his hard-earned savings on
the new house, when just as the last slate
was nailed on, the Duchy of Cornwall
agent came down on him, and said, " Now
you are on Duchy land you shall pay rent
for the inn you have built on our land with
out our gracious permission."
The old " Warren Inn " was the scene of
the well-known gruesome story of the be
nighted traveller who was taken in one
snowy winter evening and placed in a bed
room where was an oak chest. During the
night he woke, the moon shone in at the
little casement on the chest. It had dis
persed the clouds. His imagination began
to work. He was uneasy as to this chest ;
he got out of bed and crept to it, threw up
ISO DARTMOOR IDYLLS
the lid, and saw a dead man in it. Of course,
no more sleep for him that night. Next
morning he came down to his breakfast off
a rasher of salt bacon, and eyed the cheery
host and hostess with some suspicion. At
last he ventured to mention what he had seen.
"Oh!" said the hostess, "it's only old
vayther. The frost be that hard, the snow
that deep, us can't carr'n yet awhile to
Lydford churchyard to bury 'n, so us has
salted 'n in."
The traveller pushed from him his plate
with the rasher untouched.
Jonas Coaker had a somewhat lively time
when landlord, for at that period the
Vitifer tin mines near at hand were in full
work, and the miners came there to drink
and dance and brawl.
On one occasion when he .refused to hand
out more liquor, because his customers
were becoming unruly, they combined
against him, drove him from his own door,
broached his barrels, and drank themselves
dead drunk. Jonas was constrained, as he
termed it, to play " hidey peep " on the
moor so long as this turbulent crew held
his premises, which they did till they had
drained the last drop from his barrels and
emptied all his bottles.
JONAS COAKER 151
Then sobriety necessarily returned, and
the miners felt they had gone too far. They
went back to their work, and Jonas estimated
what his loss had been, of course with a
margin on his side, and they paid for their
spree according to his valuation, which they
were unable to check.
Jonas had long legs, a fine physique, and
lungs like blacksmith's bellows. On one
occasion he ran from Post Bridge to Exeter,
a distance of twenty miles, up hill and down
dale, without halt, in a little over four hours.
He was then aged thirty.
His last occupation was rate collector for
the parish of Lydford, the largest parish in
England, that comprises within its bounds
the major portion of Dartmoor, in fact
nearly 57,000 acres.
Towards the end of his life the old man's
mind was concerned with but one care —
" Oh dear life ! whativer shall I do wi'
myself when I'm dead ? "
" What do you mean, Jonas ? "
" I've no relations — no wife, no sons, no
daughters, and I'm desperate poor. Lawk-
a-dear life ! whativer shall I do wi' myself
when dead ? "
A kind neighbour tried to reassure him.
" Jonas, doan't'y be terrified over thickey
152 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
trouble. I'll see to'y that you be put
away in Widecombe churchyard all vitty
(suitably)."
" Thank'y, Cap'n " — he addressed the
overseer of a mine on the moor not far
distant, and such a person is always entitled
" Captain."
"Thank'y, Cap'n. That's very kind of
you. But how will'y get the men to carr'
me?"
"There be men to Hexworthy mine."
" I reckon there be — let me see ; " then he
began to count on his fingers how many
miners were there. "You see, Cap'n, it's
not that I be such a powerful weight, but it's
a cruel long way to Widecombe. I must
have for sure sartain a change o' bearers."
He considered a while. " You see, Cap'n, I
can't ease 'em. I'd walk part o' the way to
ease 'n if I could. But I can't. Oh dear
life ! whativer shall I do wi' myself when
dead ? "
" I assure you I will find you plenty of
bearers."
"That's very kind o' you. But what if
you be away on business when I die —
whativer shall I do wi' myself then ? "
"I'll tell my missus to send a man on
horseback to the nighest telegraph-office and
JONAS COAKER 153
wire right off on end to me, and I'll come, I
promise you, and leave my business so as
to attend to you."
"That's uncommon kind o' you," said
Jonas, "and I thank'y gratefully for the
same ; but supposing that the horse should
cast a shoe — then, whativer shall I do wi'
myself? "
" There is Will Fry can shoe the horse."
"But Will, he gets a drop too much
occasionally. What a pretty job it would
be if Will Fry were fresh, and ran the nail
into the frog and lamed your horse — and all
along o* me. Whativer should I do wi'
myself then?"
" You need not trouble yourself about
that, Jonas. The licence has been with
drawn from the inn, and it has now changed
hands and has become a temperance hotel,
so that Will cannot get drink there even if
he desire it."
" That's a great comfort to me to think it.
But, then, doan't'y fancy Will Fry might be
that sulky and pervarse all along of not
gettin' his drink that he might refuse to shoe
the horse ? "
"Then, Jonas, my horse shall go without
his shoe." *
"Thank'y, Cap'n ; it is very good o' you
154 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
to say so, and no doubt you mean it kind.
But if your horse fell lame on the road —
whativer should I do wi' myself then ? "
So he fretted — there was no relieving his
concern ; a fresh difficulty continued to start
up as soon as an old one was laid. In his
humble mind he supposed that no one could
care sufficiently for him to give up a day's
work to assist at his burying ; and he had
absolutely nothing of his own to leave, to pay
for his funeral. After a friend had done every
thing to satisfy his scruples, he would put
his hand to his white eyes, wipe the tear that
trickled down his withered cheek, and recur
to the same difficulty. "When I'm dead,
whativer shall I do wi' myself ? "
At last the dreaded day came; not the
day of death — to that he had looked forward,
not with blind eyes, but with eyes that saw
through darkness into the unspeakable light
beyond — but the day of burial, and all the
moorside turned out to do honour to the
kindly, good old poet. The day was Sunday,
the 1 6th February, 1890. A frost was on
the short turf, the sky was clear. The miners
from Hexworthy were at Ring Hill in their
best black ; and away over the moors in
the glitter of the sun on the sparkling, hoary
grass and twinkling furze-bushes the old
JONAS COAKER 155
man was borne, followed by a great train of
all who had known and loved him ; and as
the train swept over rolling hill, down into
glen by brawling torrent, mile after mile, by
old cairns and primeval walled enclosures,
rose the hymn and psalm, swelling, ebbing,
rising again — a river of music — till, as the
funeral procession reached the head of
Hamledon, a mighty wave of moorland,
below which lies the church of Widecombe,
the music of the bells ringing for afternoon
service hushed the song of the bearers.
GOOSIE-VAIR
ONE day— that of Old Michaelmas Day —
a friend and myself agreed to meet at Ward
Bridge over the Walla, that foams down
from its Dartmoor cradle, and to push up it
together. He was to come from Plymouth
to Horrabridge station, and to walk thence
to the point agreed on, and be on the bridge
at noon punctually. It was stipulated that
I was to bring lunch for both.
Before leaving home my good wife, with
that wonderful consideration that all good
wives possess, said to me : " To-day is
Goosie-Fair in Tavistock. It will not do
for you to be within a few miles of the
place, to pass through it, while reeking with
preparations for a feast on roast goose, and
not to have some. Besides, I know your
tricks and your ways. When you smell
the roast goose fumes, you will forget all
about your friend and the appointment, and
158 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
the scenery, and the poetry of the moor,
and turn into some hospitable house for
roast goose. There is cold goose in the
larder. I will tell the cook to put in enough
for you and Mr. Blank. You are sure to
have a huge appetite, and I shall provide
accordingly."
"All right/' said I. "Angel of the
Spheres! don't forget sage-and-onion stuff
ing. Goose without stuffing is like lamb
without mint sauce, a title without an estate,
a Frenchman without brag, and an Irishman
without wit."
I started, and drove through Tavistock.
The town was crowded. Acrobats, show
men, organ-grinders, cheap-jacks, had con
gregated there. If there be one entertain
ment I love above all others it is listening to
a cheap-jack. But I remembered my friend,
I drove past. The streets were lined with
stalls, the most inviting peppermint stick, in
barbers' poles of pink and white, was exhi
bited. If there is one seductive sweet above
another, it is peppermint stick. But I
bought none. It is to be eaten after, not
before, a meal. I considered my appoint
ment, and drove on.
The atmosphere that enveloped the town
was redolent with sage and onions, and the
GOOSIE-VAIR 159
savour of roasting goose. Had not the best
of wives put some of the article into the box
of my dog-cart, I had never got beyond
Tavistock that day.
Presently I was out of the fumes of roast
goose, on Whitchurch Down, whirling past
an old granite cross of the rudest description,
and descending a hill, like the side of
Salisbury steeple, to Ward Bridge.
I had expected to see my friend there
already. I was somewhat behind my time,
delayed by the density of the throng in the
town. But no one was on the bridge.
I waited, and wondered.
The scene is one of extraordinary beauty.
The Walla comes down from the moor in
the turbulence of youth. The moor stretches
it arms on each side. The river has sawn
itself a cleft, and in this cleft, sheltered from
the gales, growing out of every cranny be
tween the granite block in chaos, start beech
and birch and oak, thick and luxuriant as
ambitions in a boy's mind. At this season
— October — the woods were a veritable
Aladdin's garden. The rowan, or mountain-
ash, was a mass of coral. The wild guelder
rose dense with berries, carmine and trans
lucent, true carbuncles, the sloe-bushes blue
with fruit as turquoise.
160 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
I looked over the parapet of the bridge
into the limpid river. It tumbled among, it
swirled about boulders of every size and
shape. The stones, where submerged, were
black and green with weed, that streamed
down the current, and wavered, a very
Berenice's hair, under the water, and in and
out among it darted the black moorland
trout, very small, but, as I well knew, excel
lent for eating. As I looked at them, I
hummed to myself the words and strain of
an old folk-song, relative to a Cornish volun
teer who had been accidentally shot at Pen-
rhyn during some May games more than a
century ag<
" O Altarnun ! O Altarnun ! I never shall see more,
Nor hear the bells in its old tower, nor stand in the
church door,
Nor list the birds a-whistling, nor in the Inney stream
See silver trout a-gleaming, as thoughts glance by in
dream."
But these Walla trout are black and not
silver.
There was no path up the river bank, this
I knew. In order to ascend the valley I
must mount the hill, and strike to the left
by a farm that was occupied, and by another
in ruins.
I became impatient. I was becoming
GOOSIE-VAIR 161
rampageously hungry, and that being the
case, was cross. I thought — " That owl of a
Blank must have disregarded arrangements
and have preceded me up the road, and may
be awaiting me at the top of the ascent."
A farmer jogged by. I asked him if he
had seen a gentleman on the road. He
replied that he had noticed some one by
Turpin's cottage, but whether it was a gen'l-
man or not, he could not say. He had not
stayed to observe, he was late for Goosie-
Fair — he might be too late for roast goose
— at all events for the stuffing — sage and
" ingins," he said, and had pushed on.
Accordingly I wrote on a piece of paper,
torn from my pocket-book —
"AS USUAL— Late! I have
gone on with the goose to the
cottage. Look alive, or I shall
have eaten it all."
I was late myself in arriving at Ward
Bridge, but that I overlooked in considera
tion of the egregiousness of the unpunctuality
of my friend. Really, unpunctual persons
are not fit to be allowed to live. They
should be destroyed as nuisances.
I went up the hill, and turned in at a
gate to the cottage — a humble, moor-stone
M
i62 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
cot, constructed without an atom of lime
between the joints, and thatched with rushes.
The beech hedge to the garden was a ring
of fire. The leaves had turned yellow, and
the sun was on them ; we were in the
Martinmas summer.
The cottage door was open, and I entered.
Then I saw seated in a high-backed
leather chair by the deal table, a man with a
scarlet, white-spotted kerchief in his hand.
He wore knee-breeches and blue worsted
stockings. His hands were on his knees, one
held the kerchief.
" I beg your pardon,7' said I. " Will you
kindly inform me if a gentleman has been
here?"
The man turned towards me.
Then I noticed that something was amiss
with his eyes. There was a film over them,
and they were inflamed. A tear trickled
down each cheek. At the same time a short
uncouth man appeared, risen from a low
stool near the fire, where he had been seated ;
1 had not observed him at first, as the door
way and chimney were on the same side of
the apartment.
This man had a simple, somewhat childish
face, and yet he was old, nearer seventy than
sixty. He pulled his forelock and said,
GOOSIE-VAIR 163
"Your service, sir!" He wore very light,
dust-coloured corduroys, and a string was
bound round his legs below his knees.
"That's Thomas Coleman," he said, with
a tobacco-pipe indicating the suffering man.
" He's terrible put upon wi' his eyes. There,
drat it all! I've scattered the trade on the
floor."
The " trade " was the stuff wherewith he
had been packing the bowl of the tobacco-
pipe.
"You have not seen a gentleman — of a
rather provoking description, always un-
punctual — this way ? " I asked.
"No, your honour," answered the short
man, stooping to pick up the spilled
" trade."
"Because," I said, "a farmer who was
passing a few minutes agone told me he
had observed some one in your garden."
"That were I," said the kneeling man.
"I wor a-gittin' together the trade for
Coleman's pipe."
"What! do you grow tobacco on the
moor ? "
"Tweren't 'zacklie 'baccy," answered the
man.
I looked round. There was a cauldron
simmering over the peat fire, puffs of
164 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
steam issued at intervals, and the cover
rattled.
"So," said I, "you are not at Goosie-
Fair. Almost every one else is there."
"Ees, I reckon," said the child-faced
man; "us can't go, not Thomas Coleman
nor me. Us couldn't abear it."
The man with bad eyes held up his scarlet
kerchief to his face, and dried his moist
cheeks.
" I fear you are suffering greatly," said I
to him.
" I reckon it be so," answered he. " I've
been growin' dim some while. I can't see,
your honour, terrible sight. Well, I reckon
it will come wor afore it cometh better."
" Have you had advice ? "
"Aye, plenty o' that. I've been to the
dispensary, and after that they sent I to the
horse-spital, but lor bless'y, sir, the doctors
wor all in one song."
" And that was ? "
" That my eyes 'd turn reg'lar blind afore
they growed better."
" Then they gave you some hope ? "
" Nay ! I win't say that nother."
" But surely you told me they would be
better?"
" Ees, they'll come round agin."
GOOSIE-VAIR 165
" Well, that is something to hope for,
something to look forward to."
"Ees, sartain. 'Tes something to look
to."
" Then there is to be an operation ? "
" Oh lor ! they've orpirated, and 'tes no
use at all."
I was puzzled.
"They think you will come round in
time ? "
« Oh— they thinks nort. 'Tes the Word
o' God say it."
I was silent.
"It stand' th in the prophet Izee: cln
that day shall the deaf hear the words o' the
buke, and the eyes o' the blind shall zee out
o' obscoority and out o' darkness.' I shall
zee my Patty then."
" Aye, Thomas Coleman, thim blind eyes
'11 zee Patty then," acquiesced the short
man, "and as I be gawn hard o' hearing
myself, that appli'th to me too. Thomas
Coleman, he's my brother-in-law. He
married of my sister Patience, you know."
I was interested in these two old men.
I said, <c You have your dinner boiling in
the pot, and I'm detaining you from it."
"'Tes our dinner," answered the short
one, and added with that graceful courtesy
1 66 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
which is a characteristic of our agricultural
labourers, "If 'twarn't such terrible poor
trade, us 'd ax'y to have a bite wi' we."
"Delighted," I said promptly; "I have
brought something here. My friend — one
of the most unpunctual and aggravating
persons in the world— has not turned up,
and I do not relish eating in solitude."
"'Tes titties (potatoes), but you're cruel
welcome."
" Then may I add my mite to the pot ? "
I put my portions of cold roast goose
into the cauldron along with the "titties."
I was quite sure the old men would relish
the addition.
The short man had not noticed my pro
ceeding. He was engaged re-stuffing the
pipe. The other was too blind to see
anything.
"Now then, Brother Coleman," said the
short man with the simple face, " let I light
she, and smoke and think o' Patty."
He kindled the pipe at the fire, and after
a few puffs, handed it to his brother-in-law.
The smell diffused from the pipe was
peculiar. I snuffed and raised my eyebrows.
"No," said the childish man, observing
my expression of perplexity, "her bain't
fulled up wi' 'baccy. I reckon 'tes a coorious
GOOSIE-VAIR 167
smitch (scent), but Thomas Coleman fancieth
it. 'Tes just a little sage and ingin chopped
up. 'Tes Goosie-Vair."
" Yes, Goose Fair in Tavistock," said I.
"Us can't afford to go to Goosie-Vair,"
explained the short man, " and if us cu'd
our feelin's udn't let us, would they, Thomas
Coleman ? "
" No, I reckon, Methuselah Turpin."
"That's my name," said the child-faced
man ; " I'm brother-in-law to he. Patience
Turpin wor her full name, but nobody niver
ca'ld her nothin' but Patty."
" I think I'll go out in the garden, and
feel how the bloody-warriors be comin' on,"
said the nearly blind man. Then he rose
and walked to the door.
Bloody-warriors are gilly or wall-flowers.
"Thomas, my brother-in-law, be cruel
took up wi' flowers," explained Methuselah.
"Now he can't see 'em he can smell to 'em."
The old man began to tidy the room —
already scrupulously clean ; and then to lay
a white cloth on the table, and some plates
on it.
" Us be poor folk," he said apologetically,
" but us '11 make you kindly welcome. So
— and 'tes Goosie-Vair, and you bain't
there,".
1 68 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"No!- — I came for a walk on the moor
— an inhuman creature called Blank —
but there, never mind him. How long
is it since your brother-in-law has been
afflicted?"
" It's been a-coming on iver since our
Patty died."
He talked as he prepared for the meal,
hobbling about the room. He was not
lame, but his knees were perpetually bent,
he could not straighten his limbs, and there
was a bend or a twist in his mind as well —
it also was contracted.
"You see, your honour, vayther and
mother they died when me and Patty was
young. I wor the ou'der o' the two, and
tho' folks sez as I be a bit tottle (silly), yet
I cu'd work and arn my thirteen shilling
and keep house ; and Patty, her soon growed
ou'd enough to be vitty (fitting = tidy) and
spry (quick), and mind the house. I bringed
she up, and her bringed up I, till Thomas
Coleman come and took up coortin' she,
and marr'd her. But it's been just the
same ever since — I've lived wi' she and
Thomas, after they was marr'd, and she has
been dead these five year come Lady Day ;
and Thomas hev' been bad in his eyes iver
sin'. Not as that had nothin' to do wi' it.
GOOSIE-VAIR 169
Her wor a peart (lively) little maid wor
Patty, and I'm none surprised as Thomas
Coleman took a mind to she."
"Any children?" I asked.
Methuselah shook his head.
Then he went to the door, and called his
brother-in-law, who came in. Coleman was
feeble in body as well as failing in sight.
He groped his way to the table, and took
his place. Then Turpin poured out into a
bowl the contents of his pot. He saw meat
and bones of fowl of some sort, and said
simply—
" It's chicking."
" No — not chicken," I said, with a smile.
No sooner had the two old men begun to
eat than an expression of wonder, then of
reverential awe, came over their faces.
" It's goose ! " exclaimed Turpin.
" Goose, sure-ly ! " echoed Coleman.
"Us haven't eaten no goose since that
day, have we, Thomas Coleman ? " said the
childish man.
u Well, now," said the blind man, " who
shall say as merickles be past ? — and to-day
be Goosie-Vair ! "
" This is something better than a 'baccy
bowl stuffed with sage anal onions," said I,
laughing,
i;o DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"Thanks to you, sir, and to Him as
brought you, sir," said Coleman. " So it
be. But you see, sir, when I can't have
goose — and I haven't set my teeth into one
since that day — the smoke be better than
nothin' at all, special since I've lost my
Patty."
It was a pleasure to see the old men enjoy
that goose. I was now thankful that my
friend — that fellow Blank (confound him !)
— had not arrived : thankful that I had
come to the cottage, and had thought of
slipping my lunch into the pot of the
brothers-in-law.
When the meal was over, I found that
their hearts were open, and that they were
ready to make a confidant of me.
Now it was Thomas Coleman who took
the lead in speaking, whilst Methuselah
Turpin cleared away the relics of the feast.
"I don't mind tellin' of it now, your
honour, as we be all friends together — not as
there's ort to be ashamed on ! The Lord
presarve us! — but there be some soorts o'
things folk don't like to tell to ivery one —
things as they kip huddled up i' their hearts
like treasures they don't let all the world
zee. Then somethin' comes like thickey
(that) mouthful o' goose wi' sage-apd-ingm
GOOSIE-VAIR 171
stuffing and it unlocks the heart, and all
comes tumblin' out. I don't mind tellin' of
it, if, sir, you don't mind the hearin' of it."
" On the contrary, you could not do me
a greater kindness/'
" You mun know," said the blind man,
after he had wiped his eyes, " I wor cruel
took up wi' Patty, and right as I shu'd be.
Her wor a proper dacent maid. That wor
five-and-twenty year agone. Then I had
my eyesight, — her wor nimble on her feet
as a hare, and light o' heart as a gladys
(yellow-hammer)."
Then Methuselah broke in.
"Brother Thomas Coleman," said he,
" let me tell the genl'man about that. You
corned a-coortin' o' my zistur, and I didn't
half like it. Her and me had been very
comfortable like together. Her'd looked
arter me, and I'd looked arter she ; and I
didn't half like it when you, Thomas Cole
man, wos always axin' me if I cu'd find my
way all alone to Jericho."
The blind man turned his face to me and
tapped his forehead.
" Methuselah be that simple," said he,
"he don't understand nothin' about coortin' ;
he niver at no time went in for they May-
games. Of course, I didn't want to have he
i;2 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
hangin' about wheniver I corned over to see
Patty, a-dragglin' along iverywhere wi' us
when I took her out a bit o' a stroll. I
dare say I may ha' axed he to go to Jericho
at time or two ; but, Methuselah ! you was
terrible provokin' at my coortin' time."
" I wasn't goin' to have none but a proper
chap have my zistur," explained Turpin ;
"an1 how wos I to find that out wi'out
follerin' 'em iverywhere, and hearin' all they
had to say the one to another ? Us hed
lost vayther and mother, and I thought
it wor my dooty to look arter the maid."
" I reckon you a little over-did it, Methu
selah."
"A chap can't be too partickler," said
Turpin, gravely. "Tweren't as if I had a
scoor o' zisturs."
"Well," pursued the blind man, "the
coortin' went on wi' difficulties, just as well
as two poor creatures cu'd, wi' Methuselah
trailin' about, and niver for no minit out o'
the way. At last comes our weddin' — Old
Michaelmas Day, Goosie-Vair — and us —
that's me and Patty — had a mind to make
our honeymoon off roast goose. Patty and
I was to drive into Tavistock, and ha' our
bust on goose, and all to ourselves, lovier
like. Will'y b'lieve it, sir, that there
GOOSIE-VATR 173
dratted Methuselah, he would come honey-
moonin' along wi' we. Sed I to he, 'A
goose, as every vule (fool) knoweth, be too
much for one and not enough for three/
But, lor' bless y', sir ! there were no movin'
he — Methuselah be that stubborn when he
takes something into his head. Sed he,
'Thomas Coleman, I knows as my zistur
hath a tremendjous small apertite, and the
goose '11 do very well between us three.' It's
o' no use argifying wi' the likes o' he."
The blind man touched his brow signi
ficantly, and shook his head.
Then the short man broke in. " Thomas
Coleman, he said to I, ' Don't y' think,
Methuselah, you'd better get your ticket
and go to Jericho ? ' Then I sed, ' I'm not
a-gwan', Thomas ; for why ? Because I don't
know for sartain they keep Goosie-Vair to
thickey place you call Jericho, and I know
they do to Tavistock.' "
" Well," continued the blind man, " there
was no giving he the slip. When us got to
the e Plough/ they wos uncommon kind, for
they knawed us three wor out honeymoonin',
and they gave us a gurt (great) big goose,
so big as a turkey. We eat 'n, and had
enough. Well, your honour, I've niver
tasted roast goose from that day to this,
174 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
exceptin' in my dreams. Us be poor folk,
and can't afford 'n." Coleman wiped his
eyes. " But, sir, wheniver our weddin' day
cometh round, I just have a whiff out o' my
'baccy-pipe o' sage and ingins, and then I
seems to be carried back to that theer
weddin' day, when Patty wor so charmin'
and Methuselah that terrible provokin'.
However, I'll go on wi' my tale. Us re
turned from our honeymoonin' — that is to
say, Patty and me and Methuselah — and
Farmer Northmore had given me up this
here little cottage to live in wi' my wife ;
and when I brought Patty here, nothin'
would do but Methuselah must cum also."
" There now," protested Turpin; "what
wor I to do wi'out my zistur ? Her'd
knitted my stockings, and baked kettle
bread, and my pasty, and I couldn't get on
by myself. When us came to the door,
after our honeymoon, Thomas turned as red
as a poppy, and said, ' For the last time,
will you be off to Jericho ? ' But I answered
and said, ( I don't reckon the farmers there
be in want o' hands. They're all suited.'
So I stayed wi' 'em, I did."
"And it was best so," said Thomas.
" My dear wife didn't live long — only
twenty years. O dear blood ! I shall not
GOOSIE-VAIR 175
see her again — ( not till the eyes see out o'
obscoority and out o' darkness/ as Scriptur
telleth." '
" They may call me tottle," put in
Methuselah, "but I did the right thing.
For when my zistur died, and Thomas
became hard o' seein', who'd ha' looked
arter things, I'd like to knaw ? Everything
ha gone suant (smoothly) wi' me. I've
been doin' woman's work — baking and
washin', and darnin', and the likes/'
" That's true enough," assented Thomas
Coleman.
A twelvemonth passed, and again ^came
the Martinmas summer and the Tavistock
Goose Fair. I had gone into the town, not
to partake of goose, but in pure oblivion of
the fact that it was " Goosie-Vair." When,
however, I did realise that it was this
momentous day, then I recalled those
brothers-in-law, and became desirous of
seeing them again.
Alas! such had been the spin and tear
of life, that I had not found time to go
to them again through an entire twelve
month. I had purposed doing so, but had
always postponed the expedition — because
of distance, because of business, because of
176 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
pleasure, because of the weather, because
of laziness. But now that Goose Fair Day
was come, and had brought with it the same
radiant weather as in the previous year, I
merely baited my horse, and then drove
on to Ward Bridge.
The woods were as golden and copper as
they had been the year before, the fern was as
russet, the mountain-ash berries as coraline,
the guelder berries as carbuncle-like, and the
sloes as turquoise in the bloom on their
purple cheeks. The water foaming under
the bridge waved the long black weed-tresses,
the trout darted — just the same. It was
hard to believe that a whole year had
slipped away since my last visit.
I rode slowly up the steep ascent, turned
at the corner, hitched up my horse at the
gate, and entered the little garden.
All about the house was the same, Not
the smallest token of change. Under the
window were seedling wallflowers — " bloody-
warriors " — ready to be set out for spring-
flowering next year. The door was open.
I tapped and walked in, and looked at the
arm-chair. It was empty.
I tapped again. I could hear some one
stumping about up-stairs, but he seemed
unable to hear me. I waited patiently till
GOOSIE-VAIR 177
he came down. Then I saw Methuselah
Turpin, creeping along with legs bent, more
clumsy and uncouth than before ; and I
speedily discovered that his ears had become
more hard of hearing.
Where was his brother-in-law? He
beckoned to me to follow, and he led me
up the steep staircase, that was little better
than a ladder.
When I had reached the chamber, I saw
the bed, and on the bed a coffin. The old
Thomas was laid therein, no doubt, but the
lid was on.
"Her bain't screwed down yet," said
Turpin, " but her will be present-ly. Would
y' like to have a look ? Thomas maketh a
beautiful lych, that her do."
He stumbled to the bedside, and raised
the lid. I saw the old man then. There
was a little colour still in the cheeks and
the lips. The blind eyes were closed. The
face was singularly peaceful ; it had a
wondrous refinement and beauty in it. But
I opened my eyes very wide at something I
saw — at something that made me turn and
look sharply at Methuselah, whose hand
shook as he held the coffin-lid; and he
said, apologetically —
"Well, sir, your honour, I thought as
N
i;8 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
my sister Patty would be main pleased.
You see to-day be Goosie-Vair."
What surprised and shocked me was the
sight of the pipe slipped into the dead
man's mouth, between the dead lips. But
that was not all. It was stuffed. There
could be no doubt as to what was the
stuffing — sage and onions !
"You see," said Methuselah, "to-day
be Goosie-Vair. To-day twenty-six years
agone my sister Patty married Thomas
Coleman, and they — us three — kep' our
honeymoon into Tavistock Goosie-Vair.
Well, Thomas he sed I was a bit tottle,
but for all, I don't think I be. He's agwan'
to be buried to-day — Goosie-Vair — beside
Patty, into Walkamton churchyard. He's
gwan* to be laid o' one side, and I've made
square wi' the sexton as I'm to be laid on
t'other — her i' the middle — when it please
the Lord to take me. And I thought I'd
gi'e my sister a bit o' surprise and pleasure
like. Her'll be walking in the heavenly
garding — and all to once her'll smell a
snitch o' sage and ingins, and her'll jump
up like and say, "Tes Goosie-Vair, and
there be my Thomas Coleman havin' his
pipe o' sage and ingins — sure as iver, it be
he comin' ; and her'll run to the gates and
GOOSIE-VAIR 179
be the first to welcome he — comin' along
smokin' of his pipe. I'm not so tottle —
not I."
A year later — nay, rather more than
that — and the little cottage was deserted.
Methuselah, grown very deaf, had departed,
and was laid on one side of his sister.
There is a headstone to all three, and on
it the text —
"'In that day shall the deaf hear the
words of the book, and the eyes of the blind
shall see out of obscurity and out of
darkness.' — Isa. xxix. 18."
THE HAMMETTS
THE river Plym, after leaving the moor at
Cadover Bridge, descends rapidly through
a gorge the sides of which are of rock, in
terspersed with dwarf oak. In spring the
loveliest of gold green is mixed with the
most delicate of silver greys into the most
harmonious whole. But perhaps among the
rainbow changes of colour, the fairest phase
is in August, when the moorland above the
trees is in full bloom of the heath and
heather; then it is as though raspberry
cream had been spilt over the tors and was
streaming down the sides, running through
every cleft, capping every rock, spreading
over every slope, suffusing every sweep of
down, the whole over-arched by the silvery
blue sky.
Here and there a gorse-bush shoots forth
as a burst of flame through the mantle of
pink that is pure, sweet as a maiden's blush.
181
182 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
This same wave of rosy lilac flows down
upon and runs in among the oak coppice,
and drives forward and downward the rank
bracken, that is thrust to the river from
under the shelter of the dark green oaks,
and is already touched with frost or pre
mature decay, and changing through every
range of tint from sap green to old gold.
Below, the Plym boils and tosses over
rocks, here by its spray nourishing an
emerald patch of moss that -caps a boulder,
there foaming into a pool shot through by
trout black in body, and cooling the feet of
the great royal osmunda that stands tall and
rich at the margin, with its cinnamon flower
scathes now in ripeness. Perched on a stone
under the osmunda is the blue kingfisher
watching for a trout sufficiently small to
become his prey, and the wagtail is "dish
washing " on a flat stone in mid-river, with
out any concern for a meal, as the tiny gnats
are thick in the air as motes in the sunbeam.
The mighty rock that shoots up precipit
ously from the river is the Dewerstone, and
it marks the junction of the Plym and the
Meavy.
On the other side of the river the precipice
is less bold. A bridge crosses the combined
waters and scrambles up the moorside to
THE HAMMETTS 183
Sliaugh, the granite tower of whose church
shoots boldly against the sky, and pricks it
with its pinnacles.
At the very water's meet stood a cottage
called Grenofen, and at the time of which
we are telling, it was occupied by a couple
of the name of Hammett. Job Hammett
was a man of over seventy, stooping,
with his head on one side, and a pointed
nose, from the point of which brow and
mouth and chin receded at an angle of sixty
degrees, giving him very much the appear
ance of a bird. Bird-like also was the way
in which he hopped about, twitched his head
from side to side, and flapped his arms.
There was a somewhat sly look in his small
eyes; lines were deeply drawn from behind
each nostril that crossed the jaw and met
under the chin, giving a sardonic, ill-natured
expression to his features.
His wife Bell Hammett was a fine woman,
well compacted, heavy, not in flesh only, but
in bone as well ; with very fair complexion,
barley-sugar-coloured eyebrows and hair of
head ; the latter always beautifully smooth,
and maintaining its gloss although she was
getting on in age, though fifteen years
younger than her husband. Altogether a
comely woman was Bell Hammett. She
1 84 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
was scrupulously neat in her dress, scrupu
lously clean in her person.
It was the trouble of her life that Job was
rummagy and untidy. He had to be made
clean, put into order, bullied into tidiness.
And Bell was just the woman to keep Job up
to the mark. She had no scruples about
using her tongue on him — no more than has
a bear in licking her cubs into shape.
When she did this, Job was not slow to
reply. She rated and abused him in a long-
continued, loud, and harsh declamation ; he
answered by sudden and sharp onslaughts,
and contrived in a very few words, shot in
between her sentences, to strike the woman
and wound her where most sensitive. These
retorts only made her worse, more angry,
more abusive, more extravagant; but they
served as a relief to Job, and a gratification
to his malice.
This couple led a most unhappy connubial
life. They were ill assorted, they showed
each other no love, their time was spent in
annoying one another, in mutual recrimi
nation.
There was one particular song which Job
loved to hum, or to whistle, or to tap with
his fingers on the table, that peculiarly aggra
vated her.
THE HAMMETTS 185
Isabella Hammett had been brought from
a populous and cheerful neighbourhood to
Grenofen, when Job married her, and she felt
the loneliness of her life in the wood at the
foot of the great rock, with no one nearer
than at Shaugh, to which she must climb.
She was then a lively, agreeable young
woman, and was much in request as gossip
at baptisms, and she had a passion for funerals.
No one in any parish round could die and
be buried without Isabella Hammett going
to the interment, and weeping copiously over
the grave and through the service that com
mitted dust to dust and ashes to ashes.
There was a young butcher who on one
occasion, and one only, escorted Isabella
Hammett home from a funeral. He had
been a bearer, and wore his most glossy
black and whitest pocket-handkerchief, and
most lugubrious face, and most double Day-
and-Martined boots.
Job took it into his head to be jealous, to
throw out hints that Bell was carrying on
with the butcher. He believed that she
got her meat from him only that she might
flirt with him whenever the meat cart halted
on Shaugh Bridge ; that the " Ho ! ho ! "
which the butcher shouted from his cart on
the bridge was not so much a call for Bell
1 86 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
to come out and choose a joint or take
in tripe, as a summons to an affectionate
tete-a-tete.
That was thirty years ago, and now the
butcher was married and had a dozen
children, and Bell had stood godmother to
half of that dozen, and had wept over the
graves of three which had died. The
butcher no longer came round with his cart.
His son who was in the business did that.
Nevertheless, the old grievance of that
walk home with the butcher in his bearer's
garb was still a topic of irritation and strife
between Job and his wife. She had for
some years given up attending little domestic
festivities ; nevertheless, the accusation that
she was a gad-about was cast in her teeth on
all occasions. And, as a gentle reminder
that he had something against her, Job
would hum or rap or whistle the tune of
" The old man can't keep his wife at home,"
when he did not speak, and yet desired to
annoy her. And, it must be allowed, the
air of this song was one of a peculiarly
irritating nature ; at least, Bell Hammett
considered it so.
The song was never sung through in its
entirety in her presence. If it came out, it
was in a fragmentary condition, and it was
THE HAMMETTS 187
sometimes interpolated with allusions to the
butcher in black, which did not concord
with rhyme or metre.
As Job Hammett has long ceased to sing
the song in snatches, indeed to sing it at all
in this world, and if he is singing elsewhere,
is certainly not singing this, I will venture
here to transcribe it.
" The old man can't keep his wife at home,
She dearly loves abroad to roam.
She chooseth to eat the daintiest meat —
Here was interpolated, " Got of that mourn
ing butcher" —
" And leaves the old man the bone.
Herself must have good cheer,
Herself drink humming beer,
A merry life lives she,
For her heart is full of glee.
" The old man's wife went out to dine,
And left him tucked in bed at home.
She was dressed so fine, she tippled red wine,
Her face with pleasure shone.
She capered and she danced,
She like an ostrich pranced,
And she sang, * There's none so free
As old men's wives can be.;
"The old man began to crawl, and coughed ;
Above the door he set a stone,
Then sat and quaffed gruel and laughed,
Till spasms made him groan.
His wife so late came home,
Then clattered down the stone.
It fell on her head
And it knocked her dead."
i88 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
Then, with a volley of hammering of fists
on the table, and kicks with his feet. Job
would roar out the chorus : —
" The old man don't keep a wife at home,
Not one who dearly loves to roam.
Odds bobbins ! my life ! Of gad-about wife
The old man now has none."
Matters went on in this wretched fashion
for thirty years, getting worse rather than
better. At first each was, as it were, trying
his or her weapons, feeling the other's side
for vulnerable points; years of girding at
one another had made them perfect masters
of hurting and incensing one another. At
last it became intolerable to both. After a
continuous engagement that lasted three days
and three nights, without a break, when
each was raw and wincing, or bruised and
aching — when the temper of each was flaring
at white heat, then both came simultaneously
to the conclusion reached by the blase man
of society, that life is not worth living.
" I shall commit suicide," yelled Job.
" So shall I ; that's the only way to be rid
o' you," screamed Bell.
" Go and ax the butcher to lend you his
sticker," sneered Job.
" Go and smother yourself in dirt," jibed
Bell.
THE HAMMETTS 189
"I won't hear another word from you/'
raged Job.
"Nor I from you" retorted Bell. "I
shall starve myself to death."
" So shall I," said Job.
"I shan't do it in the house, lest you
should enjie the sight/' said Bell.
" Do it anywhere, so long as you do it,"
answered Job.
" I shall go into the wood across the
river," said Bell, " and die there."
" No, you shan't ; the butcher '11 come
and feed you as the ravens did Elijah. I'll
go there."
" Then I'll climb Dewerstone."
" Do it — only begone."
Accordingly these miserable beings left
their house, one in one direction and one in
the other, fully resolved to commit suicide,
each by abstention from food. Mrs. Hammett
scrambled to the summit of the Dewerstone,
and there, panting and very hot, threw
herself down in the heather. Mr. Hammett
hopped, bird-like, from stone to stone in the
bed of the Plym till he reached the further
side, and then he crawled away into the
depth of the coppice and cast himself among
the fragrant bracken.
Bell Hammett was greatly exhausted ; she
190 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
was so hot and her wind so short that for a
while it was to her real enioyment to lie on
the heather, look up into the depth of sky,
and think that that was where her husband
never would be. It was a place reserved
for herself.
What an ill-used woman she had been !
For thirty years she had been the wife of
that mean, spiteful, grubby old Job, had
toiled for him, had mended for him, washed
for him, baked for him, and all she got in
return was abuse.
Why had she taken him ? Never had
she committed a greater mistake, never done
anything she rued more bitterly. What if
she had not married Hammett ? Was it
not possible that the butcher — " Never
mind about the butcher," said Bell. "He
is far out of my reach as yon liquid, lovely
star," and she pointed to Venus, then just
showing above the horizon, for the day was
declining. " It's a sin to think of the
butcher," continued Bell, u now I'm on the
threshold of eternity."
She put out her hand, plucked a couple
of whortleberries, and put them into her
mouth.
" How Job has gone on about that butcher,
all these thirty years, and I'm sure I gave
THE HAMMETTS 191
him no occasion — that's to say, nothing so
very partic'lar ; but he might ha' overlooked
it, in thirty years. Men is onray son able ;
wimmen is poor sufferin' martyrs."
The light began to fade out of the sky.
To the west was a wondrous glory, and
against that, the peaks of the Cornish moors
stood distinct and sharp.
"There'll be rain to-morrer," said Bell,
"when the Cornish tors be so distinct.
Lawk-a- dickey ! If I be to starve to death,
I'd rayther do it dry. 'Twill be terrible tryin'
if rain cometh on."
The glow became less. An amber cloud
turned dull and lost its gold, changing into
lead.
" Deary dimmity ! " said Mrs. Hammett,
sitting up. "There's Job's Sunday shirt;
there's a great piece tore out o' the tail ; the
wind on Tuesday did it as it hung on the
cord; the wind and the clothes-peg did it,
and 'tain't mended." She lay back again.
" It don't matter, though," she said to herself.
" Job's not like to want it where he's going."
That thought comforted her for a while, but
only for a while. She sat up again. "I
should be ashamed, after I'm dead and gone,
that folks should find Job's shirt with a hole
in it — tore and never mended; and Job,
1 92 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
he'll never ha' done slappin' at me in king
dom come over that tore shirt, that is, if iver
we meet, from which presarve us."
She threw herself back in the heather.
Rooks were flying overhead. They had
been on the moor; they were returning to
observe the condition of their nests, whether
much injured during their holiday after
rearing the young.
" PYaps they may want that there shirt to
lay him out in!" mused Bell, putting up
her head. "Oh dear! it's begun workin'.
I didn't have my cup o' tea this arternoon,
and so weren't proper fitted up for starvation.
That's unfortunate; but I begins to feel
hunger a-ravenin' in my in'erds."
There was twilight in the sky after the sun
had set. Dew began to fall, and Bell
Hammett to be chilled. She lay very still
for some time, sighing, vexing her mind over
that cup of tea she had not taken in prepara
tion, when suddenly a thought darted into
her mind like the stab of a stiletto.
" Jemminy-crikey ! " said she, sitting bolt
upright. " That rabbit-pie in the larder ! "
Bell remained semi-upright for some
minutes, shivering with cold and the void
internally, and concerned over this precious
rabbit-pie.
THE HAMMETTS 193
" Whativer is to be done ? " asked Bell of
vacancy; "there's thunner in the air, and
for sure her'll niver keep to our buryin'.
It'll take three days killin' us wi' starvation,
and then, I reckon, about five days till us be
taken to be buried. The rabbit-pie '11 niver
keep till then."
What a prospect !
"Drat it/' said Mrs. Hammett. "There's
a lady-bird creedlin' over my face, and
another, I reckon, rampagin' in my hair.
I don't likes this soort o' thing, and I'm
terrible holler in my in'erds. That there
rabbit-pie — " She paused, shivered, sighed,
and said, " There's a hard-bi'led egg cut
up — and there's sliced chives, and the jelly
all set — oh my ! "
She drove the lady-bird from her hair.
" I do make good pastry — that I do. 'Tis
a cruel shame thickey (that) rabbit-pie should
go bad. It seems a sin like. And if I be
goin', as I be, out o' this world, it won't do
to go wid a conscience burdened, and
burdened it will be should thickey rabbit-pie
turn bad before the buryin'."
She drew herself together.
"It's cold — terrible, and there, I've been and
got prickles o' fuzz into my hand. 'Tain't
that I mind, though — it's thickey rabbit-pie."
194 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
She stumbled to her knees.
There was a light in Grenofen.
" Whoiver hev been that wicked to come
burglin' — whilst us hev been preparing our
selves for eternity?" asked Bell Hammett,
in great excitement. "And, I shouldn't
wonder, hev got at the rabbit-pie. I'll spoil
their little sport."
Down the Dewerstone went the woman
faster than she went up, swinging herself
from one tuft of heather to another, and
never staying till she reached the cottage,
when she threw the door open, rushed in —
no one was in the kitchen — plunged into the
larder, and found Job there, engaged in
eating the rabbit-pie without knife, fork, or
spoon, using only fingers.
" You mouldy old crumb ! " she cried.
" You dirty, ontidy creetur — how dare you ! "
And here the veil may well be drawn on
the scene of mutual recrimination — and
mutual consumption of the rabbit-pie.
For some time, as may well be imagined,
the rabbit-pie formed a subject of jibe between
the pair, and displaced the butcher of Shaugh.
There ensued as little harmony as before,
and after six months the annoyance became
so great, the sense of misery so acute, that
again Bell Hammett declared her intention
THE HAMMETTS 195
of destroying herself, not this time by starva
tion, but by the surer and more rapid action
of the halter. She could endure the vexation
of her husband's conduct no longer, his
heartlessness, his cutting speeches, his slights
cast on her character, the utter hopelessness
of relief in this world.
Snatching at a stout rope, she flung from
the room, declaring that she would hang her
self from the apple tree behind the pig-sty,
and that she laid her life to the account of
Job, who had taken from her existence every
thing that could make it tolerable. With her
bosom rising and falling and her heart in a
tumult, a fire in her brain, Bell threw the
door to behind her and strode across the
back court.
The pig, hearing her step, grunted.
" No — no wash. You have had it ! " said
Mrs. Hammett, bitterly. "And who will
give you the pail to-morrer, goodness
only knows." She halted for a moment.
" And what nastiness Job may put into the
pail for you, that also goodness only
knows."
In the still evening air the savour of the
sty was strong.
Bell passed the door, and thought — " For
the last time I smell a pig-sty. There'll be
196 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
no pigs where I'm going." Then she stepped
back for another whiff, not that the savour
of a sty is particularly agreeable, but man
values what he is about to lose and never,
never, never regain.
" I shall eat none o' your black puddings,"
said Mrs. Hammett as the pig again grunted.
" Job '11 have 'em all, and enjoy 'em — dis-
gustin'."
She went out to the apple tree, and threw
the end of the rope over the only limb avail
able.
" Now," said she, " I don't see clear how
to do it. I must have a barrel out to stand
upon. I niver did it afore, and so it don't
come nat'ral like."
She went to an outhouse where was an
empty cask, and with some difficulty re
moved it from the lumber that encumbered
it, and trundled it out through the court to
the apple tree.
"I wonder whether the branch will hold,"
said Bell. " I mind last year there was such
a sight o' apples in some orchards that the
boughs broke."
She planted the cask in position, but now
found a difficulty in mounting it. The cask
being light and she being heavy, it upset
with her when she attempted to scramble to
THE HAMMETTS 197
the top. To spring cat-like on to the end
was beyond her powers.
" I'll go and get a stool," she said ; " I'll
niver get up on end of thickey barrel no
other ways."
She returned to the house with the rope
round her neck; being a tidy woman she
held up the end, and did not allow it to
draggle.
Job had lighted his pipe, planted himself
in front of the fire, with his knees expanded,
hands also, absorbing as much of the heat
as he well could. He had the fire all to
himself.
He looked round, and without removing
the pipe from his mouth, thrust it with his
tongue into one corner and said with the
other —
" What, not hanged yet ? "
" I can't wi'out the steppin' stool," she
replied. "And, Job, mind the curing of
the pig ; it's three weeks in salt, and unless
you turn the sides ivery day and pour the
brine over, they'll niver keep."
"All right," said Job. "Go on and hang
yourself. I'll mind the pig."
" You bowld unfeelin' pay cock ! " said
Bell in a rage, and swung out of the house,
carrying the stool. On reaching the apple
198 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
tree she placed the stool beside the barrel,
and after a couple of ineffectual efforts, man
aged to balance herself on the cask-head.
Then she threw the end of the halter over
the bough, and, laying hold of the end of
the rope, jumped off.
Her weight whisked the cord end out of
her hand at once, and she came down in a sit
ting posture, much shaken, under the barrel.
Jarred, frightened, hurt, she gasped, and
found her husband standing over her, en
gaged in releasing her neck from the halter.
He was still smoking.
" You stoopid ! " said he. " Don't'y know
that I've promised to take the calf to your
butcher to Shaugh to-morrow? I shall
want the halter for that."
Mrs. Hammett sprang up with an ex
clamation.
" What, Job ! You corned out here not
to save me from death, but to get the ou'd
halter for the calf! I'll teach you to valy
your wife so little."
She had the halter off her neck in a
moment, had laid hold of Job with one
hand, and was belabouring him with the
rope with the other.
She was the stoutest of the two, altogether
the best man of the two.
THE HAMMETTS 199
Job danced, writhed, entreated, swore — in
vain. The cord whirled and fell. He
winced and struggled and screamed — "Let
go, Bell ! "
" Let go ! indeed. So you came after the
rope ; not because you loved and valyed
your wife, but because you wanted it for the
calf. I'll teach you to love and valy your
wife."
"I do ! I do ! " shrieked Job, capering.
" Oh, Bell, you hurts terrible. Oh, don't.
I'm cruel tinder about the loins."
" I will — till you ses you came out of love
— out of love — and nothing else."
" Oh, I did ! out of love — love — and
nothing else. Strike me dead if I didn't."
" And valy me ! "
"And valy you above fine gold."
" Love and valy — both ! "
" Love and valy ! " repeated Job.
" And ever will ! "
" Till death ! " said Job.
He kept his word. He could not help it.
If he showed at any time a tendency to
deviate, to allude to the butcher, to warble
a certain strain, to contradict, to be dirty in
his person, untidy in his proceedings, insub
ordinate in thought or word or act, Bell
looked up at a cord that hung from a nail
200 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
and might have been mistaken for a bell-
rope, and Job returned to the path of docility
and amiability at once. So the latter end of
this married career was better than its begin
ning or middle.
JOLLY LANE COT
GEORGE HANNAFORD was as fine an
" up-standing " young man as any on
Dartmoor. Not that he lived on the moor.
On the contrary, his home was at Walk-
ampton, on the edge of the moor, but he
worked throughout the week at a mine in
Swincombe where tin was found, and re
turned home every night when the week's
labour was over, unless the weather was
very bad or very fine, and then he slept
at Swincombe in an outhouse, should the
whether be cold, and under a rock in the
open air, should the weather be warm.
The distance was not in reality very great —
not more than eight miles; but then, for
one half of the way there was bald moor
to traverse without a track, and should the
waste be enveloped in dense fog, should
rain be descending in streams, the direction
might easily be lost, and George wander
for miles out of his proper course.
201
202 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
Moreover, eight miles after a hard day's
work is like the last straw to a camel's
back; and eight miles taken homeward on
Saturday evening implied eight miles in the
early hours of Monday morning, perhaps
through streaming rain, with a hard day's
work after it.
But this may explain why in very bad
weather George Hannaford did not return
for the Sunday to his home, and yet leave
unexplained why he often failed in fine
weather.
The reason had to be sought in Brown-
berry, an ancient tenement on the Ashburton
road, occupied by a farmer named Yole
under the Poor of Brixham, who were his
landlord.
In Yole's employ was a fresh, well-built
girl of the name of Eastlake. She was not
a moor girl exactly, but came from Holne,
a parish contiguous on the moor — one,
indeed, that had a large tract of common
land on the moor, but not the "forest."
George Hannaford had cast an eye on
Martha Eastlake. If he remained in Swin-
combe over a Sunday, it was certainly rather
for the sake of having a walk and a talk
with Martha, than because he was, afraid of
bad weather and losing himself on the moor.
JOLLY LANE COT 203
That George Hannaford should marry the
girl did not suit the minds of several persons
— not, for one, of her master Yole, who
found the girl handy, willing, and industri
ous, and had no wish to lose her through
marriage or any other way ; not, for two,
of Hannaford's captain, for he thought that
should the young man marry, as there was
no house available on 'the moors into which
he could carry his bride, his bride would
carry him away somewhere else, and he
would lose the most valuable man he had
in the mine ; not, for three, of Simon
Simms the moorman, who had set his will
on the winning of Martha. A moorman is
a man who has taken a quarter of the moor
from the Duchy of Cornwall, and is
responsible for the sheep and cattle turned
out upon the waste to pasture and graze
through the summer. Every parish that
is contiguous on Dartmoor has what are
termed " venville " rights, the right to feed
sheep and oxen and horses on the moor,
the right to cut turf for fuel, and take stone
for building. Properly, Dartmoor belongs
to all Devonshire, but the Duchy has en
deavoured, and endeavoured successfully,
to cut away the rights of all parishes to
go to the moor for what is wanted, except-
204 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
ing only such as immediately adjoin the
moor.
Forest rights were granted to Edward the
Black Prince on Dartmoor — that is to say,
it was to be a chase for the Princes of
Wales for ever, where they might enjoy the
hunting of the red deer without prejudice
to the communities which possessed rights
of pasturage, and of taking from the moor
everything they required except vert; that
is to say, green oak and venison.
The Duchy of Cornwall, held by the
Prince of Wales, now claims much more ex
tended rights than were granted it ; it claims
these in virtue of holding the lordship of the
Manor — when acquired, unknown — and it
endeavours by all means to extend these
claims to land that is in the purlieus of the
" forest."
The forest of Dartmoor — a forest without
trees — is divided into four quarters, and
over each quarter is placed a moorman.
The venville tenants turn out their ponies,
bullocks, and sheep on the commons, and
the moormen demand a certain sum for
every beast thus turned out. The sum is
small, and the moorman undertakes in re
turn that the beast shall be recoverable, and
that no wilful damage shall be done to it.
JOLLY LANE COT 205
Now the Duchy exercises the right of
" Drift," that is to say, without given
warning to drive ponies or bullocks to some
pound in the quarters of the moor where
the drift is carried on, and there the venville
tenants demand their beasts, and others pay a
fine for their beasts being found on the moor.
But the Duchy is not content with
driving the forest proper, and it makes
claims, that are stoutly resisted, to drive the
drift on the tracts of moorland that surround
the forest proper.
Simon Simms was moorman for the
south-eastern quarter. He resolved — or the
hint was given him from higher quarters to
try — to drive the Holne moors. Accord
ingly, suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning,
to the braying of a great horn, Simms and a
number of men he had collected appeared
on the moors of the Parish of Holne to drive
them, and exact a fine for every head of
cattle found thereon. This created at once
resentment among the farmers and little men
of Holne, and they turned out in great num
bers to resist the Duchy officers.
Now whether it was because Martha
Eastlake was a Holne girl, or whether it was
because George was a Walkampton man,
with a hereditary grudge against the
206 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
encroaching Duchy, or whether it was that
Simon Simms being on one side, George
Hannaford out of purposeful opposition
took the other, I cannot say ; but directly it
was bruited at Swincombe that Simms was
driving Holne Moor, and that the Holne
farmers were out to resist the drift, a party
of Holne miners, and Hannaford with them,
hasted to the scene of contest to defend the
rights of the commoners and repel the
invaders. A sharp engagement ensued,
in which sticks and whips and even pistols
were used.
In the affray, Hannaford sprang at the
bridle of Simms' horse, and endeavoured to
thrust the moorman back ; his foot slipped
in the scuffle, and Simms deliberately rode
over him.
He was rescued, with leg and thigh
broken.
Months elapsed before he was able to
resume work, and then was left to a slight
extent lame. He never after wholly re
covered the breaking of his thigh.
Simon seized the opportunity whilst
Hannaford was laid by to make his offer
to Martha, and he was mortified and
incensed by her refusal of him.
The conduct of Hannaford in the affair
JOLLY LANE COT 207
of Holne Moor Drift was not favourably
viewed by the farmers on the forest. Hav
ing vast rights on the moor, they desired
with pardonable selfishness to reserve these
to themselves, and to extend the area over
which they could turn out their cattle. Ac
cordingly they were heartily in sympathy
with the Duchy attempt to extend its rights
over the contiguous commons.
Hannaford had interfered in an uncalled-
for manner. Moreover, he had been the
occasion of a slight being offered to Simms,
by a girl who should have been thankful to
pick up his whip for him when he dropped it.
No sooner was Hannaford well than he
resumed work at the mine, and attendance
on the girl Eastlake. His lameness pre
cluded his walking home to Walkampton,
and he sought for lodgings in some of the
cottages — they were few and far between
— and had much difficulty in obtaining
shelter.
He had his and Martha's banns called at
Walkampton and Holne Church, and to
enable the latter to be done, Martha trotted
home every night for two weeks to sleep at
her father's house. For the forest of Dart-
moor is in the parish of Lydford, and the
church at Lydford is something like sixteen
208 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
miles from the farm in which Martha was
working. It was well enough to prepare to
be married, but, when married, where were
they to live ? Hannaford was earning good
wages at Swincombe, and did not desire
to leave his employment. There was abso
lutely no house available in the neighbour
hood. There was no chance of obtaining a
bit of land from the farmers, on their tene
ments, for they were all opposed to having a
new settler among them. To think of ask
ing leave of building on Duchy land did not
occur to George. He knew that Simon
Simms would oppose that by every means in
his power.
What, then, could George Hannaford
do?
The banns were called on three Sundays
running, and unless the marriage followed
within three months, then the banns must be
called again.
What, then, was to be done ?
Birds cannot mate without a nest ; and
man and woman cannot marry without a
home. Yole desired to retain Martha at
Brownberry, and threw difficulties in the way.
Like a simpleton, she had not given due
notice of leaving, consequently she was held
to service for a month. The captain at
JOLLY LANE COT 209
Swincombe suddenly advanced Hannaford
and increased his pay. He urged him on no
account to leave; he held out to him the
prospect of succeeding to the captainship, as
he himself was thinking of going to another
mine.
The matter was talked over among the
miners, among the labourers on the moor ;
it was commented on among the farmers and
workpeople of Holne, who could not forget
that Hannaford had fought and suffered to
maintain their rights. The day of the wed
ding was fixed, and the young couple had
not a house to go into.
The day was — as it chanced — that of
Ashburton Fair — the first Thursday in June,
one of the best and most generally attended
fairs in the year.
A lovely June day — the sky cloudless, the
air elastic, birds singing, the wild rose —
crimson — in full flush in the hedges.
The young people walked to Holne to be
married, and as they walked were passed by
the moor farmers on their horses, or in their
rough traps, and had to encounter many a
joke and jeer. It was really too absurd —
this young miner hobbling to church to be
married without having a roof to offer his
bride to cover her head. The ceremony
210 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
over, whither would they go ? The burly
farmers laughed as they jogged along, and
nearly fell from their horses, they laughed
so boisterously.
The last to pass was Simon Simms, and
he looked at the happy couple with a malig
nant sneer. Then — no one was on the
road.
And now ensued a sight most remarkable.
From every quarter, over down and tor,
along the road, across new-takes, came men
and women all making for one spot — a bit
of wild furze-grown common a little above
Huckaby Bridge over the Dart. The men
were armed with picks, levers, " physgies."
The women carried hoes and reaping-hooks.
Not a farmer was near, not a Duchy officer.
Then ensued a spectacle of combined
activity and of rapid work such as has not
been seen on the moor since. Men went to
the tors and rolled down great stones ; they
split up such blocks as they could not move ;
whilst the women reaped down the golden
furze, and dug up the sweet turf in the form
of a long parallelogram.
Next — when a great accumulation of
stones had been brought together by the
roadside, they were levered and carried to
the spot cleared by the women, and laid in
JOLLY LANE COT 211
order two by two, forming foundations, and
next a little turf was inserted in place of
mortar; then again stones, rude and un-
shapen, were dexterously fitted into place,
and walls sprang up as by magic. Space
was left for a door, then for windows ; long
slabs of granite formed threshold and jambs
and lintel.
And now — what is this procession coming
from Holne ? It is a train of men dragging
beams, cut from the Holne woods and rudely
shaped, to serve for rafters.
And who are these coming over the moor
with laughter and song ?
A party this of moor-maidens, who have
been reaping rushes wherewith to thatch the
house, and who come now singing with the
bundles on their heads, on their shoulders,
under their arms.
What merriment ! What good-humour !
What hard toil ! What indefatigable labour !
— till all is finished. And who are these old
people coming in a cart down the hill from
Brownberry ? They are strangers to this
region, they are very old, very infirm, and
they are full of amazement at what they see.
Who are they ?
At this moment, from the opposite direc
tion, comes the young married couple. You
212 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
cannot hear the Holne bells, for Holne is far
away ; but as they come you can hear the
cheers and the joyous shouts of men and
women and children, welcoming George
Hannaford and his wife Martha to their
house and home.
And George runs to the cart approaching
from an opposite direction — with a shout to
welcome to their home from the poor-house
his father and mother, whom he had main
tained at Walkampton by his labour. The
crowd with smiling faces, and the women
with tears — tears of pleasure — separates, and
forms a passage, down which Martha passes,
enters the door, goes to the rude hearth of
flat slabs of granite, and kindles there the
first fire.
Then rises a deafening cheer. Not the
Duchy, not Simon Simms, not all the
farmers on the ancient tenements, can
remove George Hannaford and his wife
Martha.
That house — built in one day, occupied
the same night — remains unaltered to the
present moment.
In Mr. R. Burnard's first series of * Dart
moor Pictorial Records ' is a photograph of
the house, and accompanying this is the
account of its origin.
JOLLY LANE COT 213
"Jolly Lane Cot is an illustration of land-
cribbing from the Duchy by one of the
small fry. This picturesque little cottage
was erected in a single day, about fifty-five
(now fifty-nine) years ago. Preparations
were made beforehand of the requisite
material, and taking advantage of the
absence of the farmers, who had all gone off
to Ashburton June fair, the labourers on all
the country-side came down and lent a
helping hand, and in one day the walls were
up and roofed in, and by nightfall a fire
was burning on the hearth."
The custom formerly was, that if land
could be fenced in, or a house built and
occupied between sunrise and sunset, no one
could displace the occupants. And Jolly
Lane Cot was the last instance of this
custom being put in force.
GREEN RUSHES, O!
YOUNG people — the rule is all but invari
able — run together like globules of quick
silver. There is so much mercury in their
veins, gravitation is so fundamental a law of
nature. The difficulty is to keep them apart,
not to bring them together.
But human nature is capricious. There
is no hard-and-fast rule with that ; whatever
general law may be thought to govern it,
exceptions will be found, and among these
phenomena — these deviations from the nor
mal — were Tom and Jenny.
These were just the two who would not
and could not be brought together. Their
natural instincts, not inclinations, drove them
apart, and not all the efforts of well-meaning
friends and relatives, not all the thrusting
and nudging in the world, appeared likely to
give the impulse to these two to make them
come together as they ought, and as they
wished.
215
216 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
There was the oddness of the situation —
it lay in the last words of my last sentence.
As they wished. Tom had the greatest ad
miration for Jenny, but it was so excessive
that he was shy of being with her — he adored
her, but from a distance; and Jenny con
sidered that there was no young man in the
universe so far as she knew it — and she knew
no more of it than is comprised within the
bounds of the forest of Dartmoor — no young
man at all worthy of being desired, like unto
Tom ; but then so great was her respect for
him that — she ran away from him. If the
two passed on the high-road, an awkward
salutation was all they accorded each other —
a grunt and a slouch of one shoulder from
Tom, a movement of the lips to form the
words 'How do'y do now, Tom?' from
Jenny, but not the words themselves. If it
should so happen that Tom saw Jenny ahead
of him, walking along in the same direction,
then not all the king's horses nor all the
king's men could draw on Tom to hasten
his steps and catch her up. On the contrary,
he immediately jumped a wall, ran over a
field, jumped another, made a vast loop of
at least a mile, always at the run, and came
out on the road again half-a-mile ahead of
Jenny.
GREEN RUSHES, O! 217
Now it happens that on Dartmoor there
is a little church near the Dart, newly con
structed, in which a curate ministers once a
Sunday. Precisely because Jenny went there
for her devotions, not moved by any theo
logical differences and doctrinal scruples,
Tom frequented the Bible Christian chapel.
He had on one occasion been played a trick
on leaving the little church. The congrega
tion, seeing him issue from the sacred door
alongside of Jenny, immediately fell apart ;
some hurried forward, some hung back, with
the kindest sympathy possible, to allow of
Tom offering his arm — at all events his
company — to Jenny on their way back to
their several homes, which were close to
each other. But this consideration on the
part of the fellow-worshippers in the church
so agitated Jenny, and so alarmed Tom,
that she ran and clung to the side of
a farmer's wife going her way, and Tom
turned tail altogether, and walked to Holne
in a direction diametrically opposite to that
which he must ultimately pursue.
There can be no question but that, as a
general rule, we are all inclined to believe to
be true that which we hope to be true. But
there are exceptions to this rule also, and
precisely Tom and Jenny proved exceptions.
2i8 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
What was obvious to every one else, what
was certain to every one else, was precisely
that on which each was sceptical. All the
neighbours knew that Tom was madly in
love with Jenny, and that Jenny could fancy
no other lad than Tom ; that, not to put
too fine a point on it, they were cut out
for each other, and for no one else. But
this was what neither could be induced to
believe.
There was absolutely no impediment why
these two should not be joined together in
holy matrimony. The banns might have
been proclaimed from the top of every tor,
and no one would have forbidden them.
On the contrary, they would have been hailed
with acclamation. The only impediment
existed in themselves ; they would not come
together.
Tom was an active, industrious man, a
miner at Vitifer, who came up out of the
shaft red and rosy in garb as well as in face
from the tin ore; he earned his sixteen
shillings a week, and had a little cabin of his
father's construction in which he lived with
his sister, near the King's Oven, where in
ancient days the tin was run into blocks and
stamped with the royal mark.
Jenny was the last remaining maiden in a
GREEN RUSHES, O! 219
wooden barrack erected by the proprietor of
the Vitifer mine, about which barrack a word
must be said. When a new lease had been
taken of the tin rights at the head of the
Webb urn, then a long shanty of wood, tarred
black, had been erected by the manager, who
had considered that girls might very well be
employed in sorting ore. He had engaged a
dozen and a half, and had lodged them in
this shanty under the supervision of a re
spectable matron. But the scheme broke
down, because human blood is of the nature
of quicksilver ; the miners and the maids
ran together and made pairs, and there were
marriages one after another, till within a
twelvemonth the shanty was cleared of all
the lasses except Jenny ; and the matron had
no other work to do than look after Jenny,
who of all girls least needed looking after, for
she ran away from the only man for whom she
cared, yet not half so fast as he did from
her. '
Now Tom's sister was impatient to get
away. She did not love the life on the
moor; she desired above all things to take
a situation in Torquay, which is as lively
a place as invalids can make it ; and con
sumptive people have more craving for
excitement and amusement of eveiy kind
220 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
than those who are healthy. Such is
human nature.
The frolicsome invalids who frequent
Torquay have made it a very elysium for
house and parlour maids; and Tom's
sister had before her the golden dream of
a lively winter at Torquay, and a sleepy
summer there, when the invalids are
departed, arid the servants have nothing
else to do than disport themselves on parade
and lounge, and to boat and carry on with
the boatmen and railway porters.
Moreover, the matron at the shanty was
impatient. The manager of the Vitifer
mine was impatient. The former desired to
be in some prospering concern, and not a
failing one like the barrack for maidens ; and
the latter did not see the advantage of
paying and maintaining one whole matron,
of expensive respectability, for the sake of
one girl only.
Consequently, it would oblige and relieve
three persons if only Tom and Jenny would
come together. But they were willing and
prompt to do — -just anything but that.
Jenny was an orphan; had no one to
consult but herself. Tom was without
parents ; he had no one to consult but
himself. "Why the dickens should they
GREEN RUSHES, O! 221
not make a match of it ? " every one asked ;
but no one could give an answer, except
the captain of the mine, who, quoting
Artemus Ward, said : " It's downright
sheer cussedness and nothink else."
What on earth prevented Tom and
Jenny from speaking to each other right out
of their hearts ? Precisely because each felt
so strange in his or her soul, or heart, or
mind, or all three together, that neither quite
knew what was the matter. Only now and
then, on the still moor, when the sun was
shining, and the blue shadows — blue as
cobalt — lay motionless on the distant hills,
and Tom had stolen away from his mates to
eat his dinner alone in the heather, did he
lean his head in his hand and say : '• Darn
it all, I can't get her out of my mind."
And only when Jenny went to her bed,
and laid her head on her pillow, did she sigh
out to herself: "Oh dear! I do like Tom
tremendous ! "
Each took the most elaborate precautions
to conceal from other eyes what was in their
minds. Neither mentioned the other's name,
and if a third spoke it out, then Tom or
Jenny, whichever it was who heard the
other spoken of, had a flutter of the heart,
and a colour in the cheek, and looked away
222 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
from the speaker,, as if what was said did
not interest at all, and yet listened with both
ears. This went on for a whole year, and
each confidently believed that no one had
the smallest conception of the love that
consumed each heart. But it was perhaps
because each rather overdid it that every one
came to know of it.
Then, at once, all set to work to bring the
two lovers together. Most earnest in her
endeavours was Joanna, the sister of Tom.
At one time she had disliked Jenny for no
particular reason, but now she cultivated
her acquaintance, invited her to the cottage,
walked with her, and wormed her way into
her affections. Then all at once out popped
the words : " I say, Jenny, you are cruel
fond of my brother Tom, bain't you now ? "
"I — I — I Get along!'7 answered
Jenny, flushing to the temples.
" You need not deny it," said Joanna ; u I
have eyes as well as another, and I can see
it as distinct as I can the rocks on old
Believer Tor. You're terrible took up wi'
my brother Tom."
" It bain't true," answered Jenny, the tears
of vexation filling her eyes. " It's a scandal
to say such drashy stuff."
" It is true ; and what I know also is,
GREEN RUSHES, O! 223
that Tom worships the very ground you
tread."
" That's false/' answered Jenny ; " for he
rins away from me wheniver he sees me, jist
for all the world as if I were a long-cripple
(viper)."
" He does love you, I vow and protest."
" He's got a queer way o' showing it,
then," retorted Jenny, and that was, Joanna
was fain to admit it to herself, an unanswer
able argument against her proposition.
After this conversation Jenny kept away
from Joanna ; their friendship had had a
douche of cold water thrown on it, and she
would neither walk with her nor salute her.
As she said to the matron, Joanna had insulted
her.
After a lapse of three weeks matters were
patched up between them, and Joanna again
broached the subject. Again Jenny refused
to be convinced. As she said to herself:
" What am I ? I'm nought but a poor
maid that ha'n't got no belongings. I've
been left behind when all the other maidens
got married, 'cos none would have me ; and
there is Tom, as straight and stiff a chap as
any in the works, and has laid by a lot o'
money, folks say — and there aren't one of
the mining boys as has married is fit to hold
224 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
a candle to him. Git along with yourself
for an idjot, Jenny, for thinkin' he can care
a fardin' for you."
Joanna also attacked her brother. " Tom,"
said she, " here am I slavin' as a nigger, and
all for no wages but pure love, and, as you
know very well, I want to be off into service
to Torquay. You are holding me here on
to this desolate moor, where one sees no
faces lookin' in at the winder but that of a
bullock or a sheep or a Dartmoor colt, and
I wants to be off — terrible. You're aged
twenty-seven, and ought to be married, a
great hulkin' chap like you. If you'd the
feelin's of a man, you'd die o' shame ! "
" Shame at what, Jonah ? " He called her
Jonah as the short for Joanna.
" A chap o' twenty-seven and not married !
I say it's reg'lar scandalous ; and all the
county cries shame on you."
" But who'd have me-? "
" Why — bless the boy ! — Jenny."
Then Tom turned away from his sister,
and went out to wash himself of the pink
soil that was on his hands from the tin mine ;
and as he washed he said to himself : " Jenny
have me! The prettiest, tidiest, peartest
(liveliest) maiden was iver seen since Eve !
A chap like me — all mucky with chrome
GREEN RUSHES, O! 225
and clay. Git along for an idjot, Tom, for
thinking such things."
This did not answer. Then the manager
of the Vitifer mine took the matter in hand ;
so did the matron of the shanty. The master
said to one of the miners who was single :
" Bill Hawk, I wish you'd do me a favour,
and I'll give you five bob."
"Yes, sir; what is it?"
66 Look here, Bill ; I want you to walk out
that girl Jenny, gallivant with her a bit,
and "
"But, sir, I'm taking on with Mary Bolt,
down to Chagford."
" Never mind — only just for a bit. There
is that confounded fool Tom won't see that
he must have Jenny; and if we can make
him jealous, it might work."
Bill Hawk considered a moment and said :
"Well, sir, if Mary Bolt was to hear on
it, she'd be in a dowse of a rampage ; but
if you'll make it seven and six, I'll try it
on."
" I don't object to another half-crown, Bill.
So be it."
On her part the matron invited a niece
to the barrack, a very lively, dark-eyed witch
of a girl, and she brought her over to the
cottage of Joanna, who at once took to her
and contrived means of throwing her and
Q
226 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
Tom together, and the matron and her
niece talked much of Tom and his nice
cottage, and his garden, and his savings,
before Jenny. But this also failed. Jenny
would not be walked out by Bill Hawk,
would not say a word to him ; and the niece
had not a chance with Tom, who, if he saw
her in the cottage, made a run and went off
elsewhere. So passed another year. The
matron had given notice, and the barrack
was to be closed ; Jenny would be obliged to
shift for herself, and whither should she go ?
Joanna had become desperate, pining for the
frolics of Torquay, and had announced to
her brother that she had engaged herself in
a situation, and that he must shift for him
self ; she was not going to be an " exile of
Siberia," not for him nor any one — not another
winter. If he wouldn't marry
"Then I must take a housekeeper," said
Tom.
His sister stood back aghast.
"A housekeeper! You, an unmarried
man ! A housekeeper ! Goodness gracious
me ! what is the world coming to ? "
" If she's old and ugly," protested Tom.
"No woman does think herself old and
ugly. She will lay traps and snap you up.
Goodness gracious me ! Here's a fine kettle
of fish ! "
GREEN RUSHES, O! 227
" What else can I do ? " asked Tom
despairingly.
" Marry," answered Joanna.
"It takes two to do that," said Tom
disconsolately.
" Yes, of course it does. It doesn't take
three, nor four, nor half-a-dozen, but two
only. Go and speak to Jenny/'
" She runs away from me."
" Run after her."
Tom shook his head and walked away.
"Tom," said the captain of the Vitifer
mine, " I want you to do a job for me
to-day."
" What's that, cap n ? "
" We must have the shed thatched afore
the fall-rains come on, and I've borrowed
Potter's wagon. I want you to go up by
Cranmere and get me rushes, green rushes,
to have it properly roofed in. It ought to
have been done last year, but there were
other things coming on, and there had been
such a lot of rain that the bogs were well-
nigh impassable. But this year we have had
such drith (dryness) that you can get out a
long way. Potter can't let us have a man,
but we are welcome to the wagon."
"Yes, sir, I'll do it. But I must have
some one with me to load."
228 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
"I know. Potter will let us have Joe
Leaman, the boy ; he'll do, I suppose ? "
" Oh yes ; any boy, or girl either, would do
for that. It is only to pack the rushes in the
cart as I chuck 'em up."
" Very well, take Joe."
Accordingly, that day — a lovely day it was
— Tom went to the farm and got the cart,
and Joe somewhat sulkily helped Tom
to put the harness on. The horse — there
was but one — and a wagon would pass
along an eminently precarious and rugged
track.
"I say/' observed Joe Leaman, "it's
Chagford Fair to-day, and there's a circus,
there is."
" Well, what of that ? " asked Tom.
"Why don't y' go and see the jumpin'
tomahawkin' Injians, and the hostriches racin',
and the piebald pony as sits at a table and
smokes ? I would if I was you."
" I have my work to do, and I can't."
" I'd cut work if I was you."
Tom vouchsafed no answer and drove out
of the farmyard and along the track into the
depths of the moor.
" Look here," said Joe, " I can cut along
over the hill in no time, while you're going
along the way."
GREEN RUSHES, O! 229
" Well, cut along."
Joe disappeared. He did not, however,
go over the hill, but slunk back to the few
cottages near Vitifer, and came on Jenny.
" I say, Jenny, you're a good 'un, you
be."
" What do'y want now, Joe ? "
" Look y' here, Jenny, I'm off to Chagford
Fair, and there's hostriches and jumpin'
kangaroos there, and a piebald pony as
drinks beer like a fish — and my master hev
ordered me to load rushes out by Cranmere."
" Then I reckon you must go."
" No, I won't. But our cart be started,
and I want some one to take my place.
Do'y now, there's a honey, Jenny. I know
you've a holiday, 'cos of the fair ; so you
can, and it ain't fair as I should be made to
work, and want to be off to Chagford, and
you got nothin' to do, and don't kear about
fairing."
"I'll go," said Jenny, who was very good-
natured ; but she said : " Who is with the
hoss ? Who's going to cut the rushes ? "
" One of our chaps," said Joe. He had
that cunning in him which prompted him
not to say that Tom was with the cart. He
knew that, had he told the truth, Jenny
would have been too shy to go. "You're
230 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
thunderin' good," continued Joe. " Now
look here ; you cut along wi' all your legs
over that stretch o' moor yonder, and you'll
come down on the other side upon the road
way and see our cart wi' the grey mare, going
out to the bogs about Cranmere ; you can't
miss it. I'll give y' a kiss and thanks, Jenny,
if you like."
"Til have the thanks wi'out the kiss,
you monkey ," said the girl; and without
suspicion of deceit, away she went, singing
like a lark, across the moor in the direction
indicated. She went as the crow flies,
whereas the cart had to go on a track
that followed a valley and then turned round
a long shoulder of down, strewn with hut
circles belonging to an ancient settlement in
a prehistoric age. She had full three miles
to walk before she could expect to catch up
the cart and the grey mare.
As she walked, wading through the
heather, in every flush from carmine to
palest lake, she sang for very joy of heart*
and yet joy mingled with an indescribable
yearning —
" I would I were a sparrow,
To light on every tree ;
At eve, at night, and morning,
I'd flutter, love, to thee.
GREEN RUSHES, O! 231
And as the ship went sailing,
So lightly I would fly,
And perch me on the topmast,
My true love thence to spy.
" I would I were a gold-fish,
And in the sea did swim ;
At eve, at night, and morning,
I'd follow after him.
Then o'er the bulwark looking,
He'd say, « What see I there ?
A fish all golden, shining,
Like a lock of my love's hair.' "
She stooped — at her feet was a clump of
white heath — and she picked some and put
it in her bosom. To find white heath
betokens luck, it is said. Having arranged
her little posy, she went on singing —
11 1 would I were a flower,
And in a garden grew
At eve, at night, and morning,
Whene'er my love passed through.
And if you plucked and wore me,
Upon your heart I'd lie,
And breathing forth my fragrance,
Upon your heart I'd die."
She sang to a plaintive minor air — an air
that was in itself full of tears; and as she
sang, the sad words of the sad melody took
the brightness from her mood and left
an inarticulate longing therein. She sur
mounted the hill and saw the white mare
gleam in the sun, and the flash of the scythe
232 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
of the reaper who was to cut the rushes.
Who he was she could not discern, as he
was on the farther side of the cart.
She hastened her steps. She ceased sing
ing, as she had not the breath for it now.
Presently she came up with the cart, and,
still not seeing who was on the farther side,
said: "Joe has gone to the fair, and I've
told him — little monkey — I'd take his place.
Is that you, Simon Jeffries ? "
Then Tom looked up and across the cart,
and Jenny started back in dismay; but so
also did Tom.
Tom was angry ; he thought a trick had
been played on him. Jenny was ashamed ;
she thought Tom would consider her pert,
forward.
So they walked along, one on each side of
the cart, neither speaking.
That was a long, tedious journey. The
cart bounced about like a boat in a chopping
sea. Of road there was absolutely none.
The wheel on this side bounced over a great
stone, then that on the other was heaved up
Over a hummock of turf. Wretched as the
track was, it was an old one. As Tom
walked along with his eyes on the ground,
he saw something, stooped, and picked up a
flint arrow-head — a thunderbolt, he regarded
GREEN RUSHES, O! 233
it — and put it in his pocket. To find a
thunderbolt is as sure a prognostic of good
luck as to discover white heath.
At length at noon the great desolate dark
waste was reached where the rushes were to
be cut. Before beginning operations, Tom
unharnessed the horse, and then returning
to a nodule of dry peat at some little distance
to the right of the stationary cart, pulled out
his lunch, sat down, and began to eat.
Jenny had not brought any food with her.
In the hurry of starting she had forgotten
to provide herself. She withdrew to some
little distance to the left of the cart, found a
tuft of rushes, and sat down on that and
folded her hands.
Tom had eaten the greater part of his
pasty before he looked in her direction.
The cart was between them, but by leaning
backwards he could just see her across the
back of the cart-wheels. Then he observed
that she was fasting. He got up, went to
the cart, and taking out a little white bag,
carried it to her and said: "Here's Joe
Leaman's dinner; eat that." Then hastily
he retired to his former position, or rather
to his former place, not position, for he
altered the latter. Instead of sitting side
ways, he turned his back on the cart, and
234 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
of course thereby turned his back also on
Jenny.
So he munched on. In the great desolate
swamp at the spring head of the river was
no pure, no potable water, but Tom had
brought with him a flask of cold tea. If he
had not taken this with him, what would he
have done ? How could he have gulped
down his dry pasty ?
Now turning his head over his shoulder,
he looked to see what Jenny was doing for
lack of water. He couldn't see, because the
cart was in the way, so he came up to the
cart and peeped cautiously from behind it,
and saw that she was quite unable to proceed
with a very dry hunch of saffron cake.
After some hesitation, he took up a piece
of feathery moss, wiped the mouth of his
bottle, and went over to the girl, handed it
to her with a " There : pull away ; 'tis tea,"
and then turned and fled. Ten minutes
later he stretched himself, took his scythe,
and began to reap down green rushes ; and
as he reaped he sang —
" Don't y' go a-rushing, maids, in May,
Don't y' go a-rushing, maids, I say.
Don't y' go a-rushing,
Or you'll get a brushing,
Gather up your rushes, and go away.'
GREEN RUSHES, O! 235
He sang defiantly, to show that he was
not thinking of Jenny or of any one else.
After he had been engaged some time in
cutting, Jenny came and bound up in
bundles the green rushes he had cut, but
always at a considerable distance from him,
and ever as he went ahead he sang out —
" Don't y' go a-rushing,
Or you'll get a brushing,
Gather up your rushes, and go away/'
with great emphasis on the go aivay.
At last sufficient had been cut and bound
to fill the cart, and then Tom harnessed the
grey mare and put her in between the shafts,
and drove her along to where lay the little
bundles.
Then with a jerk of the chin and a sign
with his thumb, Tom indicated to Jenny to
get into the cart, which she would not do
till she had restored to him his bottle of
cold tea, in which was some still left ; and
of this Tom at once took a pull without
wiping the mouth with moss, and then
blushed up to the roots of his hair, fearing
lest Jenny should have seen him and read
the thoughts of his heart, that he was
putting his lips where had been hers — and
was happy.
All went on very silently, the loading with
236 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
rushes, and the arranging them in the
cart. Tom considered how many " niches "
(bundles) of rushes would be required for
the thatch. He had been told, and he now
took more, lest the thatches should fall short
and it would be necessary to come out to
the mere for more.
The cart was piled up high, and on the
top of the pile of green rushes sat Jenny, by
her weight to hold them in place. It was
true a rope was slung across, but the
" niches " were so short that it could hardly
nip them all. It was necessary that some
one should be in the cart to keep them in
place. Then "Gee up, old grey!" called
Tom, and they started on the return journey.
All went well for some while, slow indeed,
but without accident, so long as the track
lay over heather and moss. But when the
tracks became deeper and revealed gravel
and white lumps of granite, then the oscilla
tion was great, and the voyage attended with
danger, not only to the cart, but also to its
lading. All at once, down went one wheel
on the side opposite to Tom, and he thought
the cart and all its contents must capsize.
Quick as thought, he dived under the
cart and came up on the farther side, just as
the whole pile of rushes tilted over, and with
GREEN RUSHES, O! 237
it Jenny, who was on the top. Beyond, at
his back, was a bog — profound — treacherous.
In the terror of the moment, in his impossi
bility to escape, Tom remained where he
was, held out his arms, and into them fell
Jenny, and with her and over her and him
poured the green rushes, burying them and
almost smothering them.
But with a struggle, up through the rush
" niches " came the two heads of Tom and
Jenny ; and odd enough to relate, Jenny in
her alarm had thrown her arms round
Tom's neck, and Tom had Jenny fast
in his arms.
" Lor' a-mussy, Jenny ! " said Tom.
" Well, I never, Tom ! " said Jenny.
The moor folk who had been to Chagford
Fair, and had seen the circus, the ostriches,
the tomahawking Indians, the piebald pony
that smoked a pipe and drank beer, and who
had paid sixpence for the privilege, on their
return in the evening saw a still more interest
ing and novel sight, for which they paid
nothing. This was none other than Tom
and Jenny coming off the moor walking
hand in hand, talking to each other so hard
that they heard not nor saw the number
of people collected on the road to observe
them and comment on the sight.
238 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
They had been brought together at last,
and now could not have enough of each
other. The rushes did it.
I knew Tom and Jenny some years later,
when Tom and Jenny were no more two,
but one flesh ; and I never knew, nor could
hear tell, that they had any difference with
each other, except over this one thing.
" You know, Jenny,'' said Tom, " 'twas
you jumped into my arms."
" Now, how can you, Tom ! " answered
Jenny. " You went under the cart, so mad
was you to catch ho'ud o' me."
" I — it was the rushes I wor thinking on."
" And I — I were tum'led down by the
rushes."
" Well," said Tom— and I was told that
the little altercation always concluded in
this way — " well, Jenny, there was a power
o' folks : there was my sister Joanna, there
was that matron to the barrack, there was
the cap'n — lor' ! they was all of 'em on to
bring us together ; but they couldn't do it.
What mortal men couldn't do, the green
rushes did, and say I, and always will say
till I dies — the Lord's blessin' be on the
green rushes as grows on the moor for
bringing us together — as they did."
AN OLD CROSS
ON a long ridge of moor, a thousand feet
above the sea, that forms a spur of Dartmoor,
running out into the rich umbrageous land
below — like certain characters that retain
their innate savagery though surrounded by
the sweetest culture — stands a very ancient
cross— so rude, so shapeless that it probably
belongs to a hoar antiquity, unless it were
carved in the Middle Ages by a man who
was an abject workman.
It is of granite. It is covered with a crust
of lichen, yellow, white, and black. It is so
shapeless that some daring antiquaries have
suggested that it was a prehistoric menhir
that was hacked into a rude cross to give it
consecration from heathen rites. Whatever
its origin, it is a curious object ; and long
may it remain looking down out of its grey
lichens on the golf-players who have in
vaded this tract of down. But a quarry
239
240 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
has been opened near it ; and year by year
those engaged in supplying stone for the
roads approach nearer to the venerable cross,
and menace its stability. That its existence
has been menaced before, these pages will
declare. That the menace came to nought
is obvious, because it stands still.
The Abbot of Tavistock one day passed
that way on his mule. "Upon my word,
that cross is clean too ridiculous/' said he,
in the vernacular of the fourteenth century,
which I do not attempt to reproduce, as
vernacular never was written down save in
farces ; and there are no farces extant of that
early period to tell us what the popular slang
was.
" I think, Brother Augustine," pursued
the Abbot, " I'll have it broken up and a
new and respectable cross erected in its
stead."
" Can't do it," answered Brother Augus
tine.
"Why not?"
" Because it is a cross"
So it escaped on that occasion. Abbot
Robert wouldn't have it said of him that he
was like a Saracen or a Lollard who destroyed
crosses. So he let it remain. The cross ran
a more serious risk of destruction at the
AN OLD CROSS 241
period of the Puritan domination. Then the
intruded Presbyterian minister at Tavistock
was — was — but there, I cannot tell you his
name, because he did not destroy the cross.
On the opposite side of Dartmoor is the
village of Manaton. There also at this time
a cross stood, in the churchyard, and when
corpses were carried to burial, they were
conveyed three times round the cross. The
spiritual shepherd thought that a bit of
arrant superstition; he preached against it
•^all in vain. Then one night he smashed
the cross to pieces, and threw the fragments
away, none knew where. The execration of
his parishioners preserved his name — Car-
thew. That name is not forgotten, but the
name of the Vicar of Tavistock who tried
to destroy this cross and failed is forgotten,
because he failed. And it is about that failure
I am going to tell you.
Good, painful Master — I can't tell you
his name for reasons aforesaid — was a burning
and a shining light. In Tavistock Church
he had cut down and destroyed a magnificent
screen of carved oak richly painted and gilt ;
he had broken all the windows in which were
figures of saints and angels, and he had car
ried off the Royal Arms to serve as a dresser
in his kitchen.
242 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
But if in his Puritanical zeal he had done
away with certain things of beauty if not
utility in church, he had introduced one
article which was eminently useful — an
hour-glass — or rather a rack of four, so
contrived that one told the quarter, one
the half, the third the three-quarters, and
the fourth the whole hour that his discourse
was predestined to last. On these glasses
his congregation fixed their eyes on Sunday,
and drew relieved breaths as each column of
descending sand came to an end. Each
marked a division in his sermon, which was
always composed of four parts, the first and
last parts being somewhat curtailed to afford
an introduction or a peroration, and the
whole were so timed, extenuated, padded,
and puffed out as to fill the space of one
hour. Now the painful Master had har
angued one Sunday for the space of one hour
upon the topic of the old cross. Firstly: it
was a relic of Popish superstition. Secondly :
superstition was to be avoided by godly men.
Thirdly: it was the worship of Apollyon.
Fourthly : that cross was the very seat and
throne of Apollyon himself, who not only
sat on it but curled his tail about it.
On this last point the preacher was par
ticularly strong. He thumped the pulpit
AN OLD CROSS 243
cushion, he roared, he drew lively images
of rhetoric, that would have made his audi
ence jump like fleas, but that it was a fourthly,
and those who were not asleep were fidgeting
in their pews to be off to their dinners ; and
their minds were turning yearningly towards
beef-steak pudding or shoulder of mutton
and onion sauce.
Nevertheless the sermon made an impres
sion. It was talked about far and wide. In
the peroration the preacher had exhorted his
hearers to destroy utterly, " hip-and-thigh "
he had said, this cross ; but the expression
was not quite suitable, as crosses have neither
hips nor thighs, only arms, and this particu
lar one had a trunk as well.
Now that portion of the discourse which
was most commented on was the daring
assertion of the godly Master that
the Prince of Darkness sat upon the cross
and curled his tail round it. The curling
of the tail about it must be admitted to have
been a rhetorical flourish, and was introduced
by the orator to give a sort of stability to his
figure of the Personage in Black seated on
the cross. But that this same personage
did make thereof his throne he held most
assuredly. As for the curling of the tail
round it, that was an assumption ; it might
244 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
be, it very probably was so, but it was not
dejide.
In those days when very few persons were
able to read, when newspapers did not circu
late, then a minister was thought much of
because he was a scholar, and his assertions
carried considerable weight.
" Ded ye ever see the old Scratch up a-top
of thickey cross, now ? " asked one old woman
of another.
"Never in all my born days," answered the
crone addressed.
" But ye know some one must have, or the
pass'n wouldn't ha' zed what he did."
"No, I reckon. But I've never zeed nort,
and I've been by there many times."
"What, of a night?"
" Not oft of a night for sure." Then, after
a pause, " Well, now I come to think on't,
there was one terrible moonlight night I did
pass that way, as I were going to Moortown,
and I zeed something black run along, and it
did seem to be climbing up the cross. But
sit at top — no, I never. I thort at the time
'twere my shadow. But ye know we're all
fallible creaturs, as the minister saith, and I
may ha' been mistook for sure sartain."
" Very like. There must be truth in it,
or her (i. e. he) wouldn't ha* zed it."
AN OLD CROSS 245
Now at the same time in the " Wool Pack "
two men — farmers — were discussing the same
topic ; the name of the one was Lillicrap, and
the name of the other Cudlip.
Said Lillicrap to Cudlip : " Show it me
in Scriptur', and then I'll believe it."
" I don't reckon that Scriptur' ever men
tions Tavistock : but then there must be
something there, or the minister wouldn't
ha' zed it : I reckon he ain't set up there in
thickey pulpit to gammon us."
" If it ain't in Scriptur' show it me with my
eyes."
" You're an unbelievin' Thomas," retorted
the other. " I reckon if you'd go there a
night or two about St. Mark's Day or All
Saints', you'd see it."
" There be no Saints' days now."
" Not with the new ministers under the
Commonwealth, mebbe, here on earth, but
the sperrits and powers o' darkness keep 'em
all the same, I reckon."
" I'll not believe," roared Lillicrap. " Here,
fetch me another glass o' ale."
"Then you ort," roared Cudlip; "and
you — fetch me too another glass o' ale, and
us '11 proceed wi' the argiment."
On Monday the painful minister rubbed
his hands and said : " We shall see ! I'll give
246 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
them this day, even this Monday — it will be
down to-morrow ; so mighty is the word in
my mouth."
On the Tuesday he said, rubbing his chin,
" Verily we shall see ; my flock hearkeneth
to the voice of their pastor — whether with
alacrity or sluggishly, we shall see."
Then he took his hat and stick, and pro
ceeded to the down and trudged through
the heather, and occasionally stooped to
pluck whortle-berries and put them into
his very large mouth — so large that in it
one tiny whortle- berry was like a mere swab
in the maelstrom — and at last he surmounted
a rise, just as he had put another whortle
berry on his tongue, and lo ! there stood the
old cross as it had stood for many hundred
years.
The minister had an exercise that evening
in the church, and the elect who attended
were rated soundly for not carrying out the
injunctions given on the previous Sabbath.
But on account of the whortle-berries he
had eaten, what principally engaged the at
tention of his auditory was the blackness of
his mouth and tongue ; indeed, so taken up
were they with this, and speculating on its
origin, that the subject of his exercise passed
almost unnoticed.
AN OLD CROSS 247
Next day the pastor did not go up to the
down — he would give his flock time to
execute what he had ordered. But the
second day he rubbed his chin, wiped his
eyes, and said, " We shall see ! we shall see !
Verily and indeed, we shall see ! " and
ascended the down, trotted at a quick pace
through the heather, too quickly to notice the
wbortle-bushes, and too impatient to stop
and pluck and consume the berries.
But no sooner had he surmounted the
rise that commanded the spot where the old
cross had been planted, than he saw it,
gleaming golden in the evening sun against
a background of purple moor. This was too
much. In the worst possible temper con-
sistent with the sacredness of his character,
he hasted home.
"We shall see," said he, grimly. "Aye
and verily, we shall see. I will even now go
and do it myself."
So saying, the reverend pastor looked
out a pick and bar, put them over his
shoulder, and started again for the down.
The hill he had to mount was steep, and
his shoulders were unaccustomed to bear
greater burden than the charge of his parish.
Consequently he found the weight of the
pick and bar onerous. First he carried them
248 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
both over his right shoulder, then both over
the left, then divided them, and laid the pick
on the right and the bar on the left, then
again made a shift and reversed the positions.
None were quite desirable, and his large
mouth went down at each end, with an ex
pression not altogether angelic. The hill
was steep, he panted, the sweat ran off his
brow, his great mouth gaped like a poacher's
pocket when empty. He had to rest, lay
the tools in the hedge, and lean back among
the fern and fox-gloves, wipe his bedewed
face, and growl out some words that were
not benedictions. He was angry with his
sheep, that they were so inattentive to his
exhortations, but he was most angry with
the old mottled cross that had occasioned
this discomfort and humiliation.
"We shall see," said he, and his lip
quivered with fatigue, anger, and resentment.
" We shall see. O thou dissolute " (he meant
desolate, but was so excited that he did not
hit on the right word) — " thou dissolute old
cross, I'll grub thee up ! I'll topple thee
over ! I'll bang thee about and break thee
in sunder ! "
Then he went on his way.
He waded through heather, trampled on
the purple berries of the whortle till his boots
AN OLD CROSS 249
were dyed as though he had waded in gore.
And so — at last came within sight of the
cross.
" Oh ! " said he, " there thou art ; look
ing as audacious as ever. I'll speedily
humble thy pride. I'll lay thee even with
the dust."
So he stumbled on, occasionally tripping
among the harsh branches of the heath, and
coming down on his knees, once even on all
fours.
At length he reached the cross.
Then he looked about him. The day
was closing in. Far away on the horizon
the golden halo of declining day hung
behind the range of the Cornish moors.
" Let me see," said he. " I can do it in
half-an-hour, and be back before nightfall.
What is that black spot there on the hill ?
If it be a countryman, then verily I will
obtain his aid, and pay him with a piece
of moral exhortation. However, I cannot
await his arrival. I can but begin."
Thereupon the discreet and sober minister
began work with the pick. He did not
remove his coat, for he trusted that a labour
ing man was on his way to this point and
would speedily relieve him of his labour.
He struck into the soil, and the pick
250 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
encountered stones. "Triggers," said the
pastor, "set even to hold this same in
position and firmly. I'll have them out,
yea verily, " and he renewed his efforts.
The stones wedged in round the base
were firmly set, and he could not easily dis
place them. He went down on his knees
and worked with his fingers, and scratched
them.
"I will try the bar," said he. And he
endeavoured to lever the stones out. One
he did succeed in heaving forth. " Aye, in
verity, this is hard labour to the flesh."
Then he rose. " I will even see whether
that man be coming, to assist my infirmity."
He turned, and what he saw made him
drop the crowbar. A bull was coming at
full gallop, plunging over the masses of
furze, snorting, tossing his horns, and when
he saw the pastor face round he uttered a
bellow.
In an instant, in his terror, seeing there
was not a moment to be lost, up the cross
scrambled the minister, with an alacrity he
had not shown since boyhood, and having
reached the summit he seated himself with
legs depending one over each arm of the
cross, himself holding firmly to the head.
The bull careered round the cross, it
AN OLD CROSS 251
rubbed its horns against the stone, it looked
up, it sought to reach the frightened man,
and the pastor was fain to raise one foot,
then the other, beyond reach of the brute,
for the cross was but just sufficiently lofty to
maintain him out of danger.
"Hush! hush!" said the minister.
" Hush ! away ! avaunt ! hush ! Hush !
Begone ! "
But the savage brute was deaf to such
exclamations, as indifferent as had been the
congregation in the parish church.
"Depart, son of iniquity! Beast of
Abaddon. I anathematize thee ; go far from
me ! " shouted the man, curling his long
legs round the cross. " Oh, my gracious ! he
has twisted his horns in my tail ! " He meant
the tails of his long black coat. With both
hands he plucked at the flaps of his coat and
drew them away, but in so doing almost
overbalanced himself.
"You foul spirit! " shouted he, "I'll tell
Butcher Edgcombe of you ! I'll ask him to
strike you between the horns with his axe.
I'll order a round out of you, I'll have it
salted, I'll eat it — I will, and enjoy it too ! "
He ground his teeth at the bull, leaning his
chin on the top member of the cross. The
bull galloped round the post,, blowing blasts
252 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
from his nostrils, and his breath reached the
threatened man.
"See now/' cried the pastor, altering his
tone, " why should'st thou assail me ? I am
not edible. I am old, leathery, and without
any succulence to speak of. Over the hedge
yonder is Farmer Turpin's corn. There is
a gap you can get through. That corn is
most delicious food. No — no — my boots
are tasteless, do not seek to devour them."
How long was this likely to last ? The
evening was coming on rapidly, indeed dusk
was already setting in ; below, in the valley,
lay a haze over the river Tavy. Would he
have to spend the night perched on this
uncomfortable stone, unable to sleep, ever
on the watch against the terrible animal that
seemed possessed with intense animosity
against him.
" See ! see ! " exclaimed the minister,
"here is my kerchief. It is even red. Do
thou disport thyself therewith and let me
alone."
He let drop the piece of red material
wherewith he had previously wiped his brow,
and the bull caught it, tossed it on his horns,
tossed it again as it fluttered down, got it
entangled about them, ploughed up the
earth with his horns to disengage them ;
AN OLD CROSS 253
then, no sooner was he free again, than —
just as the pastor was attempting cautiously
to descend so as to make a rush and escape —
he returned to him again, and up the cross
swarmed the unhappy man in breathless
terror, rejoiced, when he reached the top,
to be again in security.
Then the bull threw himself down below
the stone post.
" Merciful powers ! " exclaimed the pastor,
"he is going to spend the night here.
Whatever shall I do ? "
Then, to his inexpressible relief, he saw
two human forms advancing along the turf
road that traversed the moor. These two
were Goody Blake and Margery Gloyne,
even the same who had held the conversa
tion already recorded relative to his sermon
on the preceding Sabbath.
To them now the man shouted for assist
ance in his difficulty.
Now Goody Blake was carrying a basket
of eggs, and Margery Gloyne had in her
hand a bottle of cordial, elixir vitae.
Hearing the cry, they looked in the direction
whence the sound proceeded, and saw perched
on the cross a black, lean figure waving its
arms. Instantly the words of the preacher
recurred to them* Down went eggs and
254 DARTMOOR IDYLLS
cordial, and the two old women ran as hard
as they could run in the direction of Tavi-
stock, screaming when they could scream —
"The live Apollyon, us ha' zeen him, wi'
his curly tail crooked round the ou'd cross,
and horns on his head, and breathin' brim
stone.''
The report spread. From out the public-
houses came running those who had been
drinking, with them Farmers Cudlip and
Lillicrap.
" There now ! " exclaimed the farmer.
"You unbelieving heathen — come and see
with your eyes."
" We'll all go," said the topers. " We'll
all go," said the godly. " What our minister
saith be very gospel."
In less than an hour full half the popula
tion of the little town was poured forth over
the down to see the very live Apollyon
seated on the top of the cross. Men,
women, old, young, godly and profane. When
the mob came in sight of the weird old
cross of granite, it was nearly dark, but they
could see some black object like an immense
spider or raven, gesticulating, and they
could hear it vociferating. They all held
back in doubt.
Then the bull, alarmed at the approaching
AN OLD CROSS 255
crowd, plunged through them, scattering
them like chaff, shrieking, in all directions.
When the first panic was over, the bolder
recovered courage and drew nigher.
"Drat it," said Lillicrap, "that's nought
but my old bull got loose, and — blazes ! —
that up yonder is surely — our passon."
And so it came about that the cross on
Whitchurch Down was not destroyed.
So also it came to pass that, whereas the
name of the man who destroyed the Manaton
Cross has been handed down and will never
be forgotten, that of the man who tried to
destroy the other cross has been forgotten,
because forsooth he tried to do it, and didn't
accomplish it.
THE END
RICHARD CLAY & Sows, LIMITEB,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS
AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF
METHUEN AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS : LONDON
36 ESSEX STREET
W.C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
FORTHCOMING BOOKS, . ... 2
POETRY, ...... 9
ENGLISH CLASSICS, . . . . .11
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS, ..... 12
HISTORY, . . . . . 13
BIOGRAPHY, . . . . . .15
GENERAL LITERATURE, . . . .17
SCIENCE, . . . . . - . 20
THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY, 2O
LEADERS OF RELIGION, . . . . 22
FICTION, ...... 22
BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, .... 32
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERIES, • • • 33
SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, . . . 35
CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS; .... 36
EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, .... 37
MARCH 1896
MARCH 1896.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Poetry and Belles Lettres
LANG AND CRAIGIE
THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. Edited by ANDREW
LANG and W. A. CRAIGIE. With Portrait. Demy Svo. 6s.
Also 50 copies on hand -made paper. Demy Svo. 21 s. net.
This edition will contain a carefully collated Text, numerous Notes, critical and
textual, a critical and biographical Introduction, and a Glossary.
The publishers hope that it will be the most complete and handsome edition ever
issued at the price.
W. M. DIXON
A PRIMER OF TENNYSON. By W. M. DIXON, M.A.,
Professor of English Literature at Mason College. Cr. Svo. 2s. 6d.
This book consists of (i) a succinct but complete biography of Lord Tennyson;
(2) an account of the volumes published by him in chronological order, dealing with
the more important poems separately ; (3) a concise criticism of Tennyson in his
various aspects as lyrist, dramatist, and representative poet of his day; (4) a
bibliography. Such a complete book on such a subject, and at such a moderate
price, should find a host of readers.
W. A. CRAIGIE
A PRIMER OF BURNS. By W. A. CRAIGIE. Cr. Svo. 2s.6d.
This book is planned on a method similar to the ' Primer of Tennyson.' It has also a
glossary. It will be issued in time for the Burns Centenary.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS
English Classics
THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. By SAMUEL
JOHNSON, LL.D. With an Introduction by JOHN HEPBURN
MILLAR, and a Portrait. 3 vols. Crown 8vo, buckram, los. 6d.
SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. Edited by GEORGE WYNDHAM,
M.P. Crown Svo. $s. 6d.
Theology and Philosophy
E. C. S. GIBSON
THE XXXIX. ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG
LAND. Edited with an Introduction by E. C. S. GIBSON, M.A.,
Vicar of Leeds, late Principal of Wells Theological College. In
two volumes. Demy 8v0. Js. 6d. each. Vol. I.
This is the first volume of a treatise on the xxxix. Articles, and contains the Intro
duction and Articles i.-viii.
E. L. OTTLEY
THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. By R. L.
OTTLEY, M.A., late fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon., Principal
of Pusey House. In two volumes. DemyZvo. 15*.
This is the first volume of a book intended to be an aid in the study of the doctrine
of the Incarnation. It deals with the leading points in the history of the doctrine,
its content, and its relation to other truths of Christian faith.
L. T. HOBHOUSE
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. By L. T. HOBHOUSE,
Fellow and Tutor of Corpus College, Oxford. Demy Svo. 2is.
' The Theory of Knowledge ' deals with some of the fundamental problems of
Metaphysics and Logic, by treating them in connection with one another.
PART I. begins with the elementary conditions of knowledge such as Sensation
and Memory, and passes on to Judgment. PART ir. deals with Inference in
general, and Induction in particular. PART HI. deals with the structural concep
tions of Knowledge, such as Matter, Substance, and Personality. The main
purpose of the book is constructive, but it is also critical, and various objections
are considered and met.
4 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS
W. H. FAIRBROTHER
THE PHILOSOPHY OF T. H. GREEN. By W. H. FAIR-
BROTHER, M.A., Lecturer at Lincoln College, Oxford. Crown 8vo.
3J. 6d.
This volume is expository, not critical, and is intended for senior students at the
Universities, and others, as a statement of Green's teaching and an introduction
to the study of Idealist Philosophy.
F. W. BUSSELL
THE SCHOOL OF PLATO : its Origin and Revival under
the Roman Empire. By F. W. BUSSELL, M. A., Fellow and Tutor
of Brasenose College, Oxford. Demy 8v0. Two volumes, 'js. 6d.
each. Vol. /.
In these volumes the author has attempted to reach the central doctrines of Ancient
Philosophy, or the place of man in created things, and his relation to the outer
world of Nature or Society, and to the Divine Being. The first volume com
prises a survey of the entire period of a thousand years, and examines the
cardinal notions of the Hellenic, Hellenistic, and Roman ages from this particular
point of view.
In succeeding divisions the works of Latin and Greek writers under the Empire
will be more closely studied, and detailed essays will discuss their various systems,
e.g. Cicero, Manilius, Lucretius, Seneca, Aristides, Appuleius, and the Neo-
Platonists of Alexandria and Athens.
History and Biography
EDWARD GIBBON
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
By EDWARD GIBBON. A New Edition, edited with Notes,
Appendices, and Maps by J. B. BURY, M.A., Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin. In Seven Volumes. Crown %vo. 6s. each. Vol. I.
The time seems to have arrived for a new edition of Gibbon's great work— furnished
with such notes and appendices as may bring it up to the standard of recent his
torical research. Edited by a scholar who has made this period his special study,
and issued in a convenient form and at a moderate price, this edition should fill
an obvious void. The volumes will be issued at intervals of a few months.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUCEMENTS 5
F. w. JOYCE
THE LIFE OF SIR FREDERICK GORE OUSELEY. By
F. W. JOYCE, M.A. With Portraits and Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
This book will be interesting to a large number of readers who care to read the Life
of a man who laboured much for the Church, and especially for the improvement
of ecclesiastical music.
CAPTAIN HINDE
THE FALL OF THE CONGO ARABS. By SIDNEY L.
HINDE. With Portraits, Illustrations, and Plans. Demy 8vo.
I2s. 6d.
This volume deals with the recent Belgian Expedition to the Upper Congo, which
developed into a war between the State forces and the Arab slave-raiders in
Central Africa. Two white men only returned alive from the three years' war —
Commandant Dhanis and the writer of this book, Captain Hinde. During the
greater part of the time spent by Captain Hinde in the Congo he was amongst
cannibal races in little-known regions, and, owing to the peculiar circumstances
of his position, was enabled to see a side of native history shown to few Europeans.
The war terminated in the complete defeat of the Arabs, seventy thousand of
whom perished during the struggle.
General Literature
L. WHIBLEY
GREEK OLIGARCHIES: THEIR ORGANISATION AND
CHARACTER. By L. WHIBLEY, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke
College, Cambridge. Crown %vo. 6s.
This book is a study of the Oligarchic Constitutions of Greece, treated histori
cally and from the point of view of political philosophy.
C. H. PEARSON
ESSAYS AND CRITICAL REVIEWS. By C. H. PEARSON,
M.A., Author of ' National Life and Character.' Edited, with a
Biographical Sketch, by H. A. STRONG, M.A., LL.D. With a
Portrait. Demy Svo. Js. 6d.
This volume contains the best critical work of Professor Pearson, whose remarkable
book on ' National Life and Character' created intense interest.
6 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS
W. CUNNINGHAM
MODERN CIVILISATION IN SOME OF ITS ECONOMIC
ASPECTS. By W. CUNNINGHAM, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. [Social Questions Series.
A book on economics treated from the standpoint of morality.
F. W. THEOBALD
INSECT LIFE. By F. W. THEOBALD, M.A. Illustrated.
Crown 8v0. 2s. 6d. [ Univ. Extension Series.
Classical Translations
CICERO— De Natura Deorum. Translated by F. BROOKS,
M.A. Crown Sve, buckram, 3^. 6d.
Fiction
THE NOVELS OF MARIE CORELLI
FIRST COMPLETE AND UNIFORM EDITION
Large crown 8-2/0. 6s.
MESSRS. METHUEN beg to announce that they will in May commence the
publication of a New and Uniform Edition of MARIE CORELLI'S Romances.
This Edition will be revised by the Author, and will contain new Prefaces.
The volumes will be issued at short intervals in the following order :-—
i. A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. 2. VENDETTA
3. THELMA. 4- ARDATH.
5. THE SOUL OF LILITH. 6. WORMWOOD.
7. BARABBAS. 8. THE SORROWS OF SATAN.
BARING GOULD
THE BROOM-SQUIRE. By S. BARING GOULD, Author of
'Mehalah,' 'Noemi,' etc. Illustrated by FRANK DADD. Crown
8v0. 6s.
The scene of this romance is laid on the Surrey hills, and the date is that of the famous
Hindhead murder in 1786.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 7
GILBERT PARKER
THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. By GILBERT PARKER,
Author of 'When Valmond came to Pontiac,' 'Pierre and his
People,' etc. Crown 8v0. 6s.
A Romance of the Anglo-French War of 1759.
EMILY LAWLESS
HURRISH. By the Honble. EMILY LAWLESS, Author of
' Maelcho,' 'Crania,' etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A reissue of Miss Lawless' most popular novel, uniform with ' Maelcho.'
MRS. OLIPHANT
THE TWO MARYS. By MRS. OLIPHANT. Crown 8vo. 6s.
MRS. WALFORD
SUCCESSORS TO THE TITLE. By MRS. WALFORD,
Author of ' Mr. Smith,' etc. Crown Svo. 6s.
JOHN DAVIDSON
MRS. ARMSTRONG'S AND OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES.
By JOHN DAVIDSON, Author of ' The Ballad of a Nun,' etc.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
A collection of stories by Mr. John Davidson, whose fine verses aie well known.
J. BLOUNDELLE BURTON
IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY. By J. BLOUNDELLE
BURTON, Author of « The Desert Ship,' etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A historical romance.
HENR7 JOHNSTON
DR. CONGALTON'S LEGACY. By HENRY JOHNSTON,
Author of * Kilmallie,' etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A story of Scottish life.
J. H. FINDLATER
THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE. By JANE H.
FINDLATER. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A story of Scotland.
8 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS
J. L. PATON
A HOME IN INVERESK. By J. L. PATON. Crown Zvo. 6s.
A story of Scotland and British Columbia.
M. A. OWEN
THE DAUGHTER OF ALOUETTE. By MARY A. OWEN.
Crown 8v0. 6s.
A story of life among the American Indians.
RONALD ROSS
THE SPIRIT OF STORM. By RONALD Ross, Author of
' The Child of Ocean. ' Crown Svo. 6s.
A romance of the Sea.
J. A. BARRY
TALES OF THE SEA. By J. A. BARRY. Author of 'Steve
Brown's Bunyip.' Crown 8vo. 6s.
H. A. MORRAH
A SERIOUS COMEDY. By H. A. MORRAH. Crown Svo. 6s.
A LIST OF
MESSRS. METHUEN'S
PUBLICATIONS
Poetry
Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS; And
Other Verses. By RUDYARD KIPLING. Ninth Edition. Crown
Svo. 6s.
Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius
rings in every line. ' — Times.
'The disreputable lingo of Cockayne is henceforth justified before the world ; for a
man of genius has taken it in hand, and has shown, beyond all cavilling, that in
its way it also is a medium for literature. You are grateful, and you say to
yourself, half in envy and half in admiration : " Here is a book ; here, or one is a
Dutchman, is one of the books of the year." ' — National Observer.
1 " Barrack -Room Ballads" contains some of the best work that Mr. Kipling has
ever done, which is saying a good deal. " Fuzzy- Wuzzy," " Gunga Din," and
" Tommy," are, in our opinion, altogether superior to anything of the kind that
English literature has hitherto produced.' — Athettaum.
' The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them
with laughter and tears; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered
words tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is?' — Pall Mall Gazette.
Henley. LYRA HEROICA : An Anthology selected from the
best English Verse of the i6th, I7th, i8th, and igth Centuries. By
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. Crown 8vo. Buckram, gilt top. 6s.
Mr. Henley has brought to the task of selection an instinct alike for poetry and for
chivalry which seems to us quite wonderfully, and even unerringly, right.' —
Guardian.
A 2
io MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
"Q." THE GOLDEN POMP : A Procession of English Lyrics
from Surrey to Shirley, arranged by A. T. QUILLER COUCH. Crown
2>vo. Buckram. 6s,
'A delightful volume : a really golden "Pomp."' — Spectator.
'Of the many anthologies of "old rhyme" recently made, Mr. Couch's seems the
richest in its materials, and the most artistic in its arrangement. Mr. Couch's
notes are admirable; and Messrs. Methuen are to be congratulated on the format
of the sumptuous volume.' — Realm.
" Q." GREEN BAYS : Verses and Parodies. By " Q.," Author
of ' Dead Man's Rock,' etc. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. -$s.6d.
1 The verses display a rare and versatile gift of parody, great command of metre, and
a very pretty turn of humour.' — Times.
H. 0. Beeching. LYRA SACRA : An Anthology of Sacred Verse.
Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. Crown 8vo. Buckram, gilt
top. 6s.
'An anthology of high excellence.' — Atheneeum.
' A charming selection, which maintains a lofty standard of excellence.' — Times.
Yeats. AN ANTHOLOGY OF IRISH VERSE. Edited by
W. B. YEATS. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
1 An attractive and catholic selection.' — Times.
' It is edited by the most original and most accomplished of modern Irish poets, and
against his editing but a single objection can be brought, namely, that it excludes
from the collection his own delicate lyrics.' — Saturday Review.
Mackay. A SONG OF THE SEA : MY LADY OF DREAMS,
AND OTHER POEMS. By ERIC MACKAY, Author of ' The Love
Letters of a Violinist. ' Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, gilt top. $s.
' Everywhere Mr. Mackay displays himself the master of a style marked by all the
characteristics of the best rhetoric. He has a keen sense of rhythm and of general
balance; his verse is excellently sonorous.' — Globe.
' Throughout the book the poetic workmanship is fine.' — Scotsman.
Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama by HENRIK IBSEN. Translated by
WILLIAM WILSON. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3.5-. 6d.
'The greatest world-poem of the nineteenth century next to "Faust." It is in
the same set with "Agamemnon," with "Lear," with the literature that we now
instinctively regard as high and holy.' — Daily Chronicle.
'A.G." VERSES TO ORDER. By"A. G." Cr.Zvo. 2s.6ct.
net.
A mall volume of verse by a writer whose initials are well known to Oxford men.
A capital specimen of light academic poetry. These verses are very bright and
engaging, easy and sufficiently witty.' — St. fames' s Gazette.
Hosken. VERSES BY THE WAY. BY J. D. HOSKEN.
Crown 8vo. $s.
MESSRS. METIIUEN'S LIST n
Gale. CRICKET SONGS. By NORMAN GALE. Crown %vo.
Linen. 2s. 6d.
' Simple, manly, and humorous. Every cricketer should buy the book.' — Westminster
Gazette.
' Cricket has never known such a singer.' — Cricket.
Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE : Poems of Chivalry,
Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy, from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day. Edited, with Notes, by Rev. F. LANGBRIDGE.
Crown 8vo. Buckram. 3$. 6d. School Edition. 2s. 6d.
' A very h appy conception happily carried out. These "Ballads of the Brave" are
intended to suit the real tastes of boys, and will suit the taste of the great majority."
^Spectator. ' The book is full of splendid things. '— World.
English Classics
Edited by W. E. HENLEY.
Messrs. Methuen are publishing, under this title, some of the masterpieces of the
English tongue, which, while well within the reach of the average buyer, shall be
at once an ornament to the shelf of him that owns, and a delight to the eye of
him that reads.
' This new edition of a great classic might make an honourable appearance in any
library in the world. Printed by Constable on laid paper, bound in most artistic
and restful-looking fig-green buckram, with a frontispiece portrait, the book might
well be issued at three times its present price.' — Irish Independent.
'Very dainty volumes are these ; the paper, type, and light-green binding are all
very agreeable to the eye. Simplex munditiis is the phrase that might be applied
to them.' — Globe.
' The volumes are strongly bound in green buckram, are of a convenient size, and
pleasant to look upon, so that whether on the shelf, or on the table, or in the hand
the possessor is thoroughly content with them. '— Guardian.
' The paper, type, and binding of this edition are in excellent taste, and leave
nothing to be desired by lovers of literature.' — Standard.
' Two handsome and finely-printed volumes, light to hold, pleasing to look at, easy
to read.1 — National Observer. \.
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY.
By LAWRENCE STERNE. With an Introduction by CHARLES
WHIBLEY, and a Portrait. 2 vols. Js.
THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE. With
an Introduction by G. S. STREET, and a Portrait. 2 vols. JS.
THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN
By JAMES MORIER. With an Introduction by E. G. BROWNE, M. A.,
and a Portrait. 2 vols. fs.
12 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
THE LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HER
BERT, AND SANDERSON. By IZAAK WALTON. With an
Introduction by VERNON BLACKBURN, and a Portrait. $s. 6d.
THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. By SAMUEL
JOHNSON, LL.D. With an Introduction by J. H. MILLAR, and a
Portrait. 3 vols. IQS. 6d.
Illustrated Books
Jane Barlow. THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE,
translated by JANE BARLOW, Author of ' Irish Idylls,' and pictured
by F. D. BEDFORD. Small ^to. 6s. net.
S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES retold by S.
BARING GOULD. With numerous illustrations and initial letters by
ARTHUR J. GASKIN. Second Edition. Crown &vo. Buckram. 6s.
'Mr. Baring Gould has done a good deed, and is deserving of gratitude, in re-writing
in honest, simple style the old stories that delighted the childhood of " pur fathers
and grandfathers." We do not think he has omitted any of our favourite stories,
the stories that are commonly regarded as merely " old fashioned." As to the form
of the book, and the printing, which is by Messrs. Constable, it were difficult to
commend overmuch. — Saturday Review.
S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. Col
lected and edited by S. BARING GOULD. With Numerous Illustra
tions by F. D. BEDFORD. Second Edition. CrownSvo. Btickram. 6s.
This volume consists of some of the old English stories which have been lost to sight,
and they are fully illustrated by Mr. Bedford.
1 Nineteen stories which will probably be new to everybody, who is not an antiquarian
or a bibliographer. A book in which children will revel.' — Daily Telegraph.
' Of the fairy tal-s, first place must be given to the collection of " Old English Fairy
Tales" of Mr. S. Baring Gould, in introducing which the author expresses his
surprise that no collection had before been attempted and adapted to the reading
of children of the old delightful English folk-tales and traditionary stories. He
has gone to the most ancient sources, and presents to young readers in this
volume a series of seventeen, told in his own way, and illustrated by F. D. Bed
ford. We can conceive of no more charming gift-book for children than this
volume.' — Pall Mall Gazette.
' The only collection of really old English fairy tales that we have.' — Woman.
'A charming volume, which children will be sure to appreciate. The stories have
been selected with great ingenuity from various old ballads and folk-tales, and,
having been somewhat altered and readjusted, now stand forth, clothed in Mr.
Baring-Gould's delightful English, to enchant youthful readers. All the tales
are good.' — Guardian.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 13
S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND
RHYMES. Edited by S. BARING GOULD, and Illustrated by the
Students of the Birmingham Art School. Buckram > gilt top.
Crown 2>vo. 6s.
' The volume is very complete in its way, as it contains nursery songs to the number
of 77, game-rhymes, and jingles. To the student we commend the sensible intro
duction, and the explanatory notes. The volume is superbly printed on sofr,
thick paper, which it is a pleasure to touch ; and the borders and pictures are, as
we have said, among the very best specimens we have seen of the Gaskin school.'
— Birmingham Gazette.
1 One of the most artistic Christmas books of the season. Every page is surrounded
by a quaint design, and the illustrations are in the same spirit. The collection
itself is admirably done, and provides a prodigious wealth of the rhymes genera
tions of English people have learned in tender years. A more charming volume
of its kind has not been issued this season.' — Record.
' A perfect treasure.' — Black and White.
'The collection of nursery rhymes is, since it has been made by Mr. Baring Gould,
very complete, and among the game-rhymes we have found several quite new
ones. The notes are just what is wanted.' — Bookman.
H. C. Beeching. A BOOK OF CHRISTMAS VERSE. Edited
by H. C. BEECHING, M.A., and Illustrated by WALTER CRANE.
Crown &vo. $s.
A collection of the best verse inspired by the birth of Christ from the Middle Ages
to the present day. Mr. Walter Crane has designed several illustrations and the
cover. A distinction of the book is the large number of poems it contains by
modern authors, a few of which are here printed for the first time.
'"A Book of Christmas Verse," selected by so good a judge of poetry as Mr.
Beeching, and picturesquely illustrated by Mr. Crane, is likely to prove a popular
Christmas book, more especially as it is printed by Messrs. Constable, with their
usual excellence of typography.' — Athcna-nm.
' A very pleasing anthology, well arranged and well edited.' — Manchester Guardian.
'A beautiful anthology.' — Daily Chronicle.
'An anthology which, from its unity of aim and high poetic excellence, has a better
right to exist than most of its fellows.' — Guardian.
' As well-chosen and complete a collection as we have seen.' — Spectator.
History
Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, FROM THK
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY. Edited by W. M.
FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at
University College. Ftilly llhistrated. In Six Volumes. Crown
8vo. 6s. each.
Vol. I. PREHISTORIC TO EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. W. M. F.
Petrie. Second Edition.
' A history written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily represented by Dr.
Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and accurate study, and
supply a vacant place in the English literature of Egyptology.'— Times.
14 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M.
FLINDERS PETRIE. Illustrated by TRISTRAM ELLIS. In Two
Volumes. Crown 8vo. 3$. 6d. each.
'A valuable addition to the literature of comparative folk-lore. The drawings are
really illustrations in the literal sense of the word.' — Globe.
1 It has a scientific value to the student of history and archaeology.'— Scotsman.
'Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine and Egypt.' — Daily News.
Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L. With 120 Illustrations. Crown
%vo. 3*. 6d.
' Professor Flinders Petrie is not only a profound Egyptologist, but an accomplished
student of comparative archaeology. In these lectures, delivered at the Royal
Institution, he displays both qualifications with rare skill in elucidating the
development of decorative art in Egypt, and in tracing its influence on the
art of other countries. Few experts can speak with higher authority and wider
knowledge than the Professor himself, and in any case his treatment of his sub
ject is full of learning and insight.' — Times.
S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE C^SARS.
The Emperors of the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous
Illustrations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. BARING GOULD,
Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. Third Edition. Royal ' %vo. i$s.
4 A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great
feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the
Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this
line of research. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a
scale of profuse magnificence. ' — Daily Chronicle.
4 The volumes will in no sense disappoint the general reader. Indeed, in their way,
there is nothing in any sense so good in English. . . . Mr. Baring Gould has
presented his narrative in such a way as not to make one dull page.' — AtheneeuM.
Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History and
their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A.
CLARK, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. 8vo. 12s. 6d.
' A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on
the Colleges of Oxford.' — Athenceum.
Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM 1434
TO 1492. By F. T. PERRENS. Translated by HANNAH LYNCH.
8vo. 12s. 6d.
A history of Florence under the domination of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de
Medicis.
' This is a standard book by an honest and intelligent historian, who has deserved
well of all who are interested in Italian history.' — Manchester Guardian.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 15
E. L. S. Horsburgh. THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO.
By E. L. S. HORSBURGH, B.A. With Plans. Crown &vo. 5*.
A brilliant essay — simple, sound, and thorough.' — Daily Chronicle.
1 A study, the most concise, the most lucid, the most critical that has been produced.'
— Birmingham Mercury,
1 A careful and precise study, a fair and impartial criticism, and an eminently read
able book.' — Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette.
George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. By H. B.
GEORGE, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. With numerous
Plans. Second Edition. Crown 8v0. 6s.
Mr. George has undertaken a very useful task — that of making military affairs in-
work and on the prospect of the reward he has well deserved for so much con
scientious and sustained labour." — Daily Chronicle.
Browning. A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ITALY
A.D. 1250-1530. By OSCAR BROWNING, Fellow and Tutor of King's
College, Cambridge. Second Edition. In Two Volumes. Crown
8v0. 5-r. each.
VOL. i. 1250-1409. — Guelphs and Ghibellines.
VOL. n. 1409-1530. — The Age of the Condottieri.
A vivid picture of mediaeval Italy.' — Standard.
1 Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on the production of a work of immense
labour and learning. ' — Westminster Gazette.
O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By STANDISH
O'GRADY, Author of * Finn and his Companions.' Cr. 8v0. 2s. 6d.
' Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings,
make it one of the freshest, breeziest volumes.' — Methodist Times.
A survey at once graphic, acute, and quaintly written.' — Times.
Biography
Robert Louis Stevenson. VAILIMA LETTERS. By ROBERT
Louis STEVENSON. With an Etched Portrait by WILLIAM STRANG,
and other Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8v0. Buckram.
7s. 6d.
Also 125 copies on hand-made paper. Demy Sv0. 2$s. net.
1 The book is, on the one hand, a new revelation of a most lovable personality, and,
on the other, it abounds in passages of the most charming prose — personal, de
scriptive, humorous, or all three ; exquisite vignettes of Samoan scenery, passages
the household, and altogether a picture of a character and surroundings that have
never before been brought together since Britons took to writing books and
travelling across the seas. The Vailima Letters are rich in all the varieties of that
charm which have secured for Stevenson the affection of many others besides
"journalists, fellow-novelists, and boys.'" — The Times.
' Few publications have in our time been more eagerly awaited than these "Vailima
16 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Letters," giving the first fruits of the correspondence of Robert Louis Stevenson.
But, high as the tide of expectation has run, no reader can possibly be disappointed
in the result.' — St. James s Gazette.
' For the student of English literature these letters indeed are a treasure. They
are more like " Scott's Journal" in kind than any other literary autobiography.'
— National Observer.
'One of the most noteworthy and most charming of the volumes of letters that have
appeared in our time or in our language. ' — Scotsman.
1 Eagerly as we awaited this volume, it has proved a gift exceeding all our hopes — a
gift, I think, almost priceless. It unites in the rarest manner the value of a
familiar correspondence with the value of an intimate journal.' — A. T. Q. C., in
Speaker.
Collingwood. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By W. G.
COLLINGWOOD, M.A., Editor of Mr. Ruskin's Poems. With
numerous Portraits, and 13 Drawings by Mr. Ruskin. Second
Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 32^.
' No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time. . . .' — Times.
1 It is long since we have had a biography with such delights of substance and of
form. Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever.' — Daily
Chronicle.
'A noble monument of a noble subject. One of the most beautiful books about one
of the noblest lives of our century.' — Glasgow Herald.
Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN : a Study. By CHARLES WALD-
STEIN, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. With a Photo
gravure Portrait after Professor HERKOMER. Post 8vo. $s.
'A thoughtful, impartial, well-written criticism of Ruskin's teaching, intended to
separate what the author regards as valuable and permanent from what is transient
and erroneous in the great master's writing.' — Daily Chronicle.
W. H. Hutton. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. By
W. H. HUTTON, M.A., Author of « William Laud.' With Portraits.
Crown 8vo. $s.
'Mr. Wm. Holden Hutton has in a neat volume of less than 300 pages, told
the story of the life of More, and he has placed it in such a well-painted
setting of the times in which he lived, and so accompanied it by brief outlines
of his principal writings, that the book lays good claim to high rank among
our biographies. The work, it may be said, is excellently, even lovingly, written.1
— Scotsman.
' An excellent monograph.' — Times.
' A most complete presentation.' — Daily Chronicle.
Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. KAUFMANN,
M.A. Crown 8vo. Buckram. $s.
A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform.
1 The author has certainly gone about his work with conscientiousness and industry.' —
Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 17
Bobbins. THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART
GLADSTONE. By A. F. ROBBINS. With Portraits. Crown
8v0. 6s.
' Considerable labour and much skill of presentation have not been unworthily
expended on this interesting work.' — Times.
Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL-
LINGWOOD. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of « The Wreck
of the Grosvenor.' With Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands of
every boy in the country.' — St. James's Gazette.
1 A really good book.' — Saturday Review.
' A most excellent and wholesome book, which we should like to see in the hands
of every boy in the country.' — St. James's Gazette.
Soutney. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins,
Drake, Cavendish). By ROBERT SOUTHEY. Edited, with an
Introduction, by DAVID HANNAY. Crown 8vo. 6s.
* Admirable and well-told stories of our naval history.' — Army and Navy Gazette.
*A brave, inspiriting book.' — Black and White.
* The work of a master of style, and delightful all through.' — Daily Chronicle.
General Literature
S. Baring Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. BARING
GOULD, Author of ' Mehalah,' etc. With Sixty-seven Illustrations
by W. PARKINSON, F. D. BEDFORD, and F. MASEY. Largy
Crown 8v0, cloth super extra , top edge gilt^ los. 6d. Fifth and
Cheaper Edition. 6s.
'"Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move
ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be
published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core.' — World.
S. Baring Gould. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE
EVENTS. By S. BARING GOULD, Author of « Mehalah,' etc.
Third Edition. Crown &vo. 6s.
* A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful
reading.'— Times.
S. Baring Gould. FREAKS OF FANATICISM. By S. BARING
GOULD, Author of 'Mehalah,' etc. Third Edition. CrownSvo. 6s.
*Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has
chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly
fascinating book.' — Scottish Leader.
A 3
i8 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
S. Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG :
English Folk Songs with their Traditional Melodies. Collected and
arranged by S. BARING GOULD and H. FLEETWOOD SHEPPARD.
Demy 4/0. 6s.
S. Baring Gould. SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional
Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Traditional
Melodies. Collected by S. BARING GOULD, M. A., and H. FLEET-
WOOD SHEPPARD, M. A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts
(containing 25 Songs each), Parts /., //., ///., $s. each. Part
IV.) $s. In one Vol., French morocco, i$s,
4 A rich collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.' — Saturday Review.
S. Baring Gould. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE
EVENTS. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
S. Baring Gould. STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPER
STITIONS. With Illustrations. By S. BARING GOULD. Crown
8v0. Second Edition. 6s.
' We have read Mr. Baring Gould's book from beginning to end. It is full of quaint
and various information, and there is not a dull page in it. ' — Notes and Queries.
S. Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN
FRANCE. By S. BARING. GOULD. With numerous Illustrations
by F. D. BEDFORD, S. HUTTON, etc. 2 vols. Demy Sw. 32^.
This book is the first serious attempt to describe the great barren tableland that
extends to the south of Limousin in the Department of Aveyron, Lot, etc., a
country of dolomite cliffs, and canons, and subterranean rivers. The region is
full of prehistoric and historic interest, relics of cave-dwellers, of mediaeval
robbers, and of the English domination and the Hundred Years' War.
' His two richly-illustrated volumes are full of matter of interest to the geologist,
the archaeologist, and the student of history and manners.' — Scotsman.
* It deals with its subject in a manner which rarely fails to arrest attention.' — Times.
W. E. Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC AD
DRESSES OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
Edited by A. W. HUTTON, M.A., and H. J. COHEN, M.A. With
Portraits. &vo. Vols. IX. and X. 12s. 6d. each.
Henley and Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE.
Collected by W. E. HENLEY and CHARLES WHIBLEY. Cr. %vo. 6s.
'A unique volume of extracts — an art gallery of early prose.' — Birmingham Post.
* An admirable companion to Mr. Henley's "Lyra Heroica." ' — Saturday Review.
* Quite delightful. The choice made has been excellent, and the volume has been
most admirably printed by Messrs. Constable. A greater treat for those not well
acquainted with pre-Restoration prose could not be imagined.' — Athenceum.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 19
Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of
the University. Edited byj. WELLS, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
Wadham College. Crorvn &vo. y. 6d.
This work contains an account of life at Oxford — intellectual, social, and religious —
a careful estimate of necessary expenses, a review of recent changes, a statement
of the present position of the University, and chapters on Women's Education,
aids to study, and University Extension.
' We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account
of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons who are possessed of a
close acquaintance with the system and life of the University.' — Athentzum.
W. B. Worsfold. SOUTH AFRICA : Its History and its Future.
By W. BASIL WORSFOLD, M. A. With a Map. Crown 8vo. 6s.
4 An intensely interesting book.' — Daily Chronicle,
* A monumental work compressed into a very moderate compass. The early history
of the colony, its agricultural resources, literature, and gold and diamond mines
are all clearly described, besides the main features of recent Kaffir and Boer
campaigns ; nor (to bring his record quite up to date) does the author fail to devote
a chapter to Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the Chartered Company, and the Boer Conven
tion of 1884. Additional information from sources not usually accessible is to be
found in the notes at the end of the book, as well as a historical summary, a
statistical appendix, and other matters of special interest at the present moment.'
— World.
Ouida. VIEWS AND OPINIONS. By OUIDA. Crown %vo.
Second Edition. 6s.
* Ouida is outspoken, and the reader of this book will not have a dull moment. The
book is full of variety, and sparkles with entertaining matter.' — Speaker.
J. S. Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA : Its Origin
and Development. By J. S. SHEDLOCK. Crown 8vo. 5*.
' This work should be in the possession of every musician and amateur, for it not
only embodies a concise and lucid history ot the origin of one of the most im
portant forms of musical composition, but, by reason of the painstaking research
and accuracy of the author's statements, it is a very valuable work for reference.'
— A thenatum.
Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA: Being Quota
tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled
by E. M. BOWDEN. With Preface by Sir EDWIN ARNOLD. Third
Edition, \6rno. 2s. 6d.
Bnshill. PROFIT SHARING AND THE LABOUR QUES
TION. By T. W. BUSHILL, a Profit Sharing Employer. Crown
Svo. 2s. 6d.
John Beever. PRACTICAL FLY-FISHING. Founded on
Nature, by JOHN BEEVER, late of the Thwaite House, Coniston. A
New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. COLLINGWOOD,
M.A. Crown &vo. $s. 6d.
A little book on Fly-Fishing by an old friend of Mr. Ruskln.
2o MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Science
Freudenreich. DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual
for the Use of Students. By Dr. ED. VON FREUDENREICH.
Translated from the German by J. R. AlNSWORTH DAVIS, B.A.,
F.C.P. Crown ^vo. 2s.6d.
Chalmers Mitchell. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P.
CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A., F.Z.S. Fully Illustrated. Crown
8vo. 6s.
A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of
Physicians and Surgeons.
Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By
GEORGE MASSEE. With 12 Coloured Plates. Royal ' 8vo. i?>s.net.
' A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of
organisms. It is indispensable to every student of the Myxogastres. The
coloured plates deserve high praise for their accuracy and execution.' — Nature.
Theology and Philosophy
Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH
THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., Canon of
Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of
Oxford. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A welcome companion to the author's famous ' Introduction.' No man can read these
discourses without feeling that Dr. Driver is fully alive to the deeper teaching of
the Old Testament." — Guardian.
Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM :
Biographical, Descriptive, and Critical Studies. By T. K. CHEYNE,
D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at
Oxford. Large crown 8vo. *]s. 6d.
This important book is a historical sketch of O. T. Criticism in the form of biographi
cal studies from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith.
It is the only book of its kind in English.
A very learned and instructive work.' — Times.
Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. PRIOR,
M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various
preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott.
' A representative collection. Bishop Westcott's is a noble sermon.' — Guardian.
Beeching. SERMONS TO SCHOOLBOYS. By H. C.
BEECHING, M. A., Rector of Yattendon, Berks. With a Preface by
Canon SCOTT HOLLAND. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Seven sermons preached before the boys of Bradfield College.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 21
Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the Reli-
f'ous Training of Boys. With a Preface by J. R. ILLINGWORTH.
y E. B. LAYARD, M.A. iSmo. is.
C. J. Shebbeare. THE GREEK THEORY OF THE STATE
AND THE NONCONFORMIST CONSCIENCE : a Socialistic
Defence of some Ancient Institutions. By CHARLES JOHN SHEB
BEARE, B.A., Christ Church, Oxford. Croiun^vo. 2s. 6d.
F. S. Granger. THE WORSHIP OF THE ROMANS. By
F. S. GRANGER, M. A., Litt.D., Professor of Philosophy at Univer
sity College, Nottingham. Crown Svo. 6s.
The author has attempted to delineate that group of beliefs which stood in close con
nection with the Roman religion, and among the subjects treated are Dreams,
Nature Worship, Roman Magic, Divination, Holy Places, Victims, etc. Thus
the book is, apart from its immediate subject, a contribution to folk-lore and com
parative psychology.
1 A scholarly analysis of the religious ceremonies,beliefs, and superstitions of ancient
Rome, conducted in the new instructive light of comparative anthropology.' —
Times.
* This is an analytical and critical work which will assist the student of Romish
history to understand the factors which went to build up the remarkable charac
teristics of the old Romans especially in matters appertaining to religion.'—
Oxford Review.
2Detiotional
With Full-page Illustrations. Fcap. Svo. Buckram. 3^. 6d.
Padded morocco, $s.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By THOMAS A KEMPIS.
With an Introduction by DEAN FARRAR. Illustrated by C. M.
GERE, and printed in black and red.
' Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the " Imitation," there can have
been few which were prettier than this one, printed in strong and handsome type
by Messrs. Constable, with all the glory of red initials, and the comfort of buckram
binding.' — Glasgyw Herald.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By JOHN KEBLE. With an Intro
duction and Notes by W. LOCK, M.A., Sub- Warden of Keble College,
Ireland Professor at Oxford, Author of the ' Life of John Keble.'
Illustrated by R. ANNING BELL.
' The present edition is annotated with all the care and insight to be expected from
Mr. Lock. The progress and circumstances of its composition are detailed in the
Introduction. There is in an interesting Appendix on the MSS. of the " Christian
Year," and another giving the order in which the poems were written. A " Short
Analysis of the Thought" is prefixed to each, and any difficulty in the text is ex
plained in a note. When we add to all this that the book is printed in clear,
black type on excellent paper, and bound in dull red buckram, we shall have said
enough to vindicate its claim to a place among the prettiest gift-books of the
season. ' — Giiardian.
' The most acceptable edition of this ever popular work with which we are ac-
qainted. ' — Globe.
*• An edition which should be recognised as the best extant. . . . The edition is one
which John Henry Newman and the late Dean Church would have handled with
meet and affectionate remembrance.' — Birmingham Post.
22 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Leaders of Religion
Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M. A. With Portraits, crown 8w.
A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders
of religious life and thought of all ages and countries.
The following are ready —
CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. HUTTON.
JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. OVERTON, M.A.
BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. DANIEL, M.A.
CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. HUTTON, M.A.
CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
JOHN KEBLE. By WALTER LOCK, M.A.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT.
LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. L. OTTLEY, M.A.
AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. By E. L. CUTTS. D.D.
WILLIAM LAUD. By W. H. HUTTON, M.A.
JOHN KNOX. By F. M'CUNN.
JOHN HOWE. By R. F. HORTON, D.D.
Other volumes will be announced in due course.
Fiction
SIX SHILLING NOVELS
Marie Corelli. BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S
TRAGEDY. By MARIE CORELLI, Author of ' A Romance of Two
Worlds,' 'Vendetta, 'etc. Twenty -first Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
1 The tender reverence of the treatment and the imaginative beauty of the writing
have reconciled us to the daring of the conception, and the conviction is forced on
us that even so exalted a subject cannot be made too familiar to us, provided it be
presented in the true spirit of Christian faith. The amplifications of the Scripture
narrative are often conceived with high poetic insight, and this "Dream of the
World's Tragedy " is, despite some trifling incongruities, a lofty and not inade
quate paraphrase of the supreme climax of the inspired narrative.' — Dublin
Review.
Marie Corelli. THE SORROWS OF SATAN. By MARIE
CORELLI. Crown 8v0. Seventeenth Edition. 6s.
' There is in Marie Corelli's work a spark of the Divine. Her genius is neither common
nor unclean. She has a far-reaching and gorgeous imagination ; she feels the
beautiful intensely, and desires it. She believes in God and in good ; she hopes
for the kindest and the best ; she is dowered with " the scorn of scorn, the hate
of hate, the love of love." There is to be discerned in her work that sense of the
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 23
unseen which is the glad but solemn prerogative of the pure in heart. Again,
she is a keen observer, a powerful, fearless, caustic satirist ; she makes an effec
tive protest, and enforces a grave warning against the follies and shams and vices
of the age.' — Report of a sermon delivered on 'The Sorrows of Satan,' by the
Rev. A. R. HARRISON, Vicar, in Tettenhall Church, Wolverhampton, on Sunday,
November 1 2. —Midland Evening News.
' A very powerful piece of work. . . . The conception is magnificent, and is likely
to win an abiding place within the memory of man. . . . The author has immense
command of language, and a limitless audacity. . . . This interesting and re
markable romance will live long after much of the ephemeral literature of the day
is forgotten. ... A literary phenomenon . . . novel, and even sublime.' — W. T.
STEAD in the Review of Reviews.
Anthony Hope. THE GOD IN THE CAR. BY ANTHONY
HOPE, Author of ' A Change of Air, ' etc. Seventh Edition. Crown
Svo. 6s.
' A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible within our limit ;
brilliant, but not superficial ; well considered, but not elaborated ; constructed
with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers
to whom fine literary method is a keen pleasure ; true without cynicism, subtle
without affectation, humorous without strain, witty without offence, inevitably
sad, with an unmorose simplicity. '— The World.
Anthony Hope. A CHANGE OF AIR. By ANTHONY HOPE,
Author of ' The Prisoner of Zenda,' etc. Third Edition. Crown
8vo. 6s.
'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced
with a masterly hand." — Times.
Anthony Hope. A MAN OF MARK. By ANTHONY HOPE,
Author of 'The Prisoner of Zenda/ 'The God in the Car,' etc.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
* Of all Mr. Hope's books, " A Man of Mark " is the one which best compares with
" The Prisoner of Zenda." The two romances are unmistakably the work of the
same writer, and he possesses a style of narrative peculiarly seductive, piquant,
comprehensive, and — his own.' — National Observer.
k
Anthony Hope. THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO.
By ANTHONY HOPE, Author of ' The Prisoner of Zenda,' ' The God
in the Car,' etc. Third Edition. Crown ^vo. 6s.
'It is a perfectly enchanting story of love and chivalry, and pure romance. The
outlawed Count is the most constant, desperate, and withal modest and tender of
lovers, a peerless gentleman, an intrepid fighter, a very faithful friend, and a most
magnanimous foe. In short, he is an altogether admirable, lovable, and delight
ful hero. There is not a word in the volume that can give offence to the most
fastidious taste of man or woman, and there is not, either, a dull paragraph in it.
The book is everywhere instinct with the most exhilarating spirit of adventure,
and delicately perfumed with the sentiment of all heroic and honourable deeds of
history and romance.' — Guardian.
24 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Oonan Doyle. ROUND THE RED LAMP. By A. CONAN
DOYLE, Author of 'The White Company,' 'The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes,' etc. Fourth Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
'The book is, indeed, composed of leaves from life, and is far and away the best view
that has been vouchsafed us behind the scenes of the consulting-room. It is very
superior to " The Diary of a late Physician." ' — Illustrated London News.
Stanley Weyman. UNDER THE RED ROBE. By STANLEY
WEYMAN, Author of ' A Gentleman of France.' With Twelve Illus
trations by R. Caton Woodville. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
'A book of which we have read every word for the sheer pleasure of reading, and
which we put down with a pang that we cannot forget it all and start again.' — .
Westminster Gazette.
' Every one who reads books at all must read this thrilling romance, from the first
page of which to the last the breathless reader is haled along. An inspiration of
'manliness and courage.' — Daily Chronicle.
'A delightful tale of chivalry and adventure, vivid and dramatic, with a wholesome
modesty and reverence for the highest.' — Globe.
Mrs. Clifford. A FLASH OF SUMMER. By MRS. W. K.
CLIFFORD, Author of ' Aunt Anne,' etc. Second Edition. Crown
8vo. 6s.
1 The story is a very sad and a very beautiful one, exquisitely told, and enriched with
many subtle touches of wise and tender insight. Mrs. Clifford's gentle heroine is
a most lovable creature, contrasting very refreshingly with the heroine of latter-
day fiction. The minor characters are vividly realised. "A Flash of Summer"
is altogether an admirable piece of work, wrought with strength and simplicity.
It will, undoubtedly, add to its author's reputation — already high — in the ranks
of novelists.' — Speaker.
' We must congratulate Mrs. Clifford upon a very successful and interesting story,
told throughout with finish and a delicate sense of proportion, qualities which,
indeed, have always distinguished the best work of this very able writer.' —
Manchester Guardian.
Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Sixteenth Century Romance.
By the Hon. EMILY LAWLESS, Author of ' Crania,' ' Hurrish,' etc.
Second Edition. Crown &vo. 6s.
' A really great book.' — Spectator.
1 There is no keener pleasure in life than the recognition of genius. Good work is
commoner than it used to be, but the best is as rare as ever. All the more-
gladly, therefore, do we welcome in " Maelcho " a piece of work of the first order,
which we do not hesitate to describe as one of the most remarkable literary
achievements of this generation. Miss Lawless is possessed of the very essence
of historical genius.' — Manchester Guardian.
E. F. Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F.
BENSON. Sixteenth Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
' A delightfully witty sketch of society.' — Spectator.
' A perpetual feast of epigram and paradox." — Speaker.
' By a writer of quite exceptional ability.' — Athen&um.
* Brilliantly written.' — World.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 25
E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. BENSON, Author of
'Dodo.' Fifth Edition. Crown ^vo. 6s.
'Well written, stimulating, unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic.'—
Birmingham Post.
1 An exceptional achievement ; a notable advance on his previous work.'— National
Observer.
M. M. Dowie. GALLIA. By MENIE MURIEL DOWIE, Author
of ' A Girl in the Carpathians. ' Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
1 The style is generally admirable, the dialogue not seldom brilliant, the situations
surprising in their freshness and originality, while the subsidiary as well as the
principal characters live and move, and the story itself is readable from title-page
to colophon.' — Saturday Review.
' A very notable book ; a very sympathetically, at times delightfully written book.
— Daily Graphic.
MR. BARING GOULD'S NOVELS
'To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah" is to imply that it contains a
story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic
descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery." — Speaker.
'That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that
may be very generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his
language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are
striking and original, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep
tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his
descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled
hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under
such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his
power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year" by year his popularity
widens.' — Court Circular.
Baring Gould. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. BARING
GOULD. Third Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
' The author is at his best.' — Times.
1 He has nearly reached the high water-mark of " Mehalah." '—National Observer.
Baring Gould. IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA: A Tale of
the Cornish Coast. By S. BARING GOULD. Fifth Edition. 6s.
'One of the best imagined and most enthralling stories the author has produced.'
— Saturday Review.
Baring Gould. MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN.
By S. BARING GOULD. Fourth Edition. 6s.
' A novel of vigorous humour and sustained power.' — Graphic.
' The swing of the narrative is splendid.' — Sussex Daily Neivs.
Baring Gould. CHEAP JACK ZITA. By S. BARING GOULD.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' A powerful drama of human passion." — Westminster Gazette.
'A story worthy the author.'— National Observer.
26 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
S. Baring Gould. THE QUEEN OF LOVE. By S. BARING
GOULD. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
The scenery is admirable, and the dramatic incidents are most striking.' — Glasgow
Herald.
Strong, interesting, and clever." — Westminster Gazette.
1 You cannot put it down until you have finished it.' — Punch.
' Can be heartily recommended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting
fiction.' — Sussex Daily News.
S. Baring Gould. KITTY ALONE. By S. BARING GOULD,
Author of 'Mehalah,' 'Cheap Jack Zita,' etc. Fourth Edition.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
1 A strong and original story, teeming with graphic description, stirring incident,
and, above all, with vivid and enthralling human interest.' — Daily Telegraph.
' Brisk, clever, keen, healthy, humorous, and interesting.' — National Observer.
1 Full of quaint and delightful studies of character.' — Bristol Mercury.
S. Baring Gould. NOEMI : A Romance of the Cave-Dwellers.
By S. BARING GOULD. Illustrated by R. CATON WOODVILLE.
Third Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
1 " Noemi " is as excellent a tale of fighting and adventure as one may wish to meet.
All the characters that interfere in this exciting tale are marked with properties
of their own. The narrative also runs clear and sharp as the Loire itself.' —
Pall Mall Gazette.
' Mr. Baring Gould's powerful story is full of the strong lights and shadows and
vivid colouring to which he has accustomed us.' — Standard.
Mrs. Oliphant. SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE. By MRS.
OLIPHANT. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' Full of her own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character- painting comes
her new gift, the delightful story before us. The scene mostly lies in the moors,
and at the touch of the authoress a Scotch moor becomes a living thing, strong,
tender, beautiful, and changeful. The book will take rank among the best of
Mrs. Oliphant's good stories.' — Pall Mall Gazette.
W.E.Norris. MATTHEW AUSTIN. By W. E. NORRIS, Author
of ' Mademoiselle de Mersac,' etc. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
1 "Matthew Austin " may safely be pronounced one of the most intellectually satis
factory and morally bracing novels of the current year.' — Daily Telegraph.
W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. NORRIS, Author of
' Mademoiselle de Mersac. ' Third Edition. Crown 8v0. 6s.
Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine character in the Duke of Hurstbourne, at once
unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life, weak and strong in
a breath, capable of inane follies and heroic decisions, yet not so definitely por
trayed as to relieve a reader of the necessity of study on his own behalf.' —
A thenaum.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 27
W. E, Norris. THE DESPOTIC LADY AND OTHERS.
By W. E. NORRIS, Author of 'Mademoiselle de Mersac.' Crown
8vo. 6s.
' A budget of good fiction of which no one will tire.' — Scotsman.
' An extremely entertaining volume — the sprightliest of holiday companions.' —
Daily Telegraph.
Gilbert Parker. PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. By GILBERT
PARKER. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength and genius in Mr.
Parker's style.'— Daily Telegraph.
Gilbert Parker. MRS. FALCHION. By GILBERT PARKER,
Author of Pierre and His People.' Second Edition. Crown &vo. 6s.
' A splendid study of character.' — Atheti&um.
1 But little behind anything that has been done by any writer of our time.' — Pall
Mall Gazette.
' A very striking and admirable novel.' — St. James's Gazette.
Gilbert Parker. THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. By
GILBERT PARKER. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' The plot is original and one difficult to work out ; but Mr. Parker has done it with
great skill and delicacy. The reader who is not interested in this original, fresh,
and well-told tale must be a dull person indeed.' — Daily Chronicle.
' A strong and successful piece of workmanship. The portrait of Lali, strong,
dignified, and pure, is exceptionally well drawn. ' — Manchester Guardian.
Gilbert Parker. THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. By GILBERT
PARKER. Third Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.
'Everybody with a soul for romance will thoroughly enjoy "The Trail of the
Sword." ' — St. James's Gazette.
1 A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like this, in which swords flash, great sur
prises are undertaken, and daring deeds done, in which men and women live and
love in the old straightforward passionate way, is a joy inexpressible to the re
viewer, brain-weary of the domestic tragedies and psychological puzzles of every
day fiction ; and we cannot but believe that to the reader it will bring refreshment
as welcome and as keen.' — Daily Chronicle.
Gilbert Parker. WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC :
The Story of a Lo^t Napoleon. By GILBERT PARKER. Third
Edition. Crown Sz'0. 6s.
' Here we find romance— real, breathing, living romance, but it runs flush with our
own times, level with our own feelings. Not here can we complain of lack of
inevitableness or homogeneity. The character of Valmond is drawn unerringly ;
his career, brief as it is, is placed before us as convincingly as history itself. The
book must be read, we may say re-read, for any one thoroughly to appreciate
Mr. Parker's delicate touch and innate sympathy with humanity.' — Pall Mall
_ Gazette.
'The one work of genius which 1895 has as yet produced.' — New Age.
28 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Gilbert Parker. AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH:
The Last Adventures of 'Pretty Pierre.' By GILBERT PARKER.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
' The present book is full of fine and moving stories of the great North, and it will
add to Mr. Parker's already high reputation.' — Glasgow Herald.
' The new book is very romantic and very entertaining — full of that peculiarly
elegant spirit of adventure which is so characteristic of Mr. Parker, and of that
poetic thrill which has given him warmer, if less numerous, admirers than even
his romantic story-telling gift has done.'— Sketch.
H. G. Wells. THE STOLEN BACILLUS, and other Stories.
By H. G. WELLS, Author of 'The Time Machine.' Crown
8vo. 6s.
' The ordinary reader of fiction may be glad to know that these stories are eminently
readable from one cover to the other, but they are more than that ; they are the
impressions of a very striking imagination, which it would seem, has a great deal
within its reach.' — Saturday Review.
Arthur Morrison. TALES OF MEAN STREETS. By ARTHUR
MORRISON. 77iird Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
' Told with consummate art and extraordinary detail. He tells a plain, unvarnished
tale, and the very truth of it makes for beauty. In the true humanity of the book
lies its justification, the permanence of its interest, and its indubitable triumph.' —
A thenceum.
' A great book. The author's method is amazingly effective, and produces a thrilling
sense of reality. The writer lays upon us a master hand. The book is simply
appalling and irresistible in its interest. It is humorous also ; without humour
it would not make the mark it is certain to make.'— World.
J. Maclaren Cobban. THE KING OF ANDAMAN : A
Saviour of Society. By J. MACLAREN COBBAN, Author of * The
Red Sultan,' etc. Second Edition. Crown &vo. 6s.
1 An unquestionably interesting book. It would not surprise us if it turns out to be
the most interesting novel of the season, for it contains one character, at least,
who has in him the root of immortality, and the book itself is ever exhaling the
sweet savour of the unexpected. . . . Plot is forgotten and incident fades, and
only the really human endures, and throughout this book there stands out in bold
and beautiful relief its high-souled and chivalric protagonist, James the Master
of Hutchepn, the King of Andaman himself.' — Pall Mall Gazette.
A most original and refreshing story. The supreme charm of the book lies in the
genial humour with which the central character is conceived. James Hutcheon
is a personage whom it is good to know and impossible to forget. He is beautiful
within and without, whichever way we take him.' — Spectator.
' "The King of Andaman" has transcended our rosiest expectations. If only for
the brilliant portraits of 'the Maister,' and his false friend Fergus O'Rhea, the
book deserves to be read and remembered. The sketches of the Chartist move
ment are wonderfully vivid and engrossing, while the whole episode of James
Hutcheon's fantastic yet noble scheme is handled with wonderful spirit and
sympathy. " The King of Andaman," in short, is a book which does credit not
less to the heart than the head of its author.' — Athenceum.
f The fact that Her Majesty the Queen has been pleased to gracefully express to the
author of " The King of Andaman" her interest in his work will doubtless find
for it many readers.' — Vanity Fair.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 29
Julian Corbett. A BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS. By
JULIAN CORBETT, Author of ' For God and Gold,' ' Kophetua
Xlllth.,' etc. Crown Si'O. 6s.
' In this stirring story Mr. Julian Corbett has done excellent work, welcome alike
for its distinctly literary flavour, and for the wholesome tone which pervades it.
Mr. Corbett writes with immense spirit, and the book is a thoroughly enjoyable
one in all respects. The salt of the ocean is in it, and the right heroic ring re
sounds through its gallant adventures, in which pirates, smugglers, sailors, and
refugees are mingled in picturesque confusion, with, the din of battle and the soft
strains of love harmoniously clashing an accompaniment. We trust that Mr.
Corbett will soon give us another taste of his qualities in a novel as exciting, as
dramatic, and as robustly human, as " A Business in Great Waters." ' — Speaker.
0. Phillips Woolley. THE QUEENSBERRY CUP. A Tale
of Adventure. By CLIVE PHILLIPS WOOLLEY, Author of ' Snap,'
Editor of 'Big Game Shooting.' Illustrated. Crown 8v0. 6s.
This is a story of amateur pugilism and chivalrous adventure, written by an author
whose books on sport are well known.
' A book which will delight boys : a book which upholds the healthy schoolboy code
of morality.' — Scotsman.
' A brilliant book. Dick St. Clair, of Caithness, is an almost ideal character — a com
bination of the mediaeval knight and the modern pugilist.' — Admiralty and Horse-
guards Gazette.
' If all heroes of boy's books were as truly heroic as Dick St. Clair, the winner of the
Queensberry Cup, we should have nothing to complain of in literature specially
written for boys.' — Educational Review.
Robert Barr. IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS. By ROBERT
BARR, Author of ' From Whose Bourne,' etc. Third Edition.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
' A book which has abundantly satisfied us by its capital humour.' — Daily Chronicle.
1 Mr. Barr has achieved a triumph whereof he has every reason to be proud.' — Pall
Mall Gazette.
L. Daintrey. THE KING OF ALBERIA. A Romance of
the Balkans. By LAURA DAINTREY. Crown 8vo. 6s.
1 Miss Daintrey seems to have an intimate acquaintance with the people and politics
of the Balkan countries in which the scene of her lively and picturesque romance
is laid. On almost every page we find clever touches of local colour which dif
ferentiate her book unmistakably from the ordinary novel of commerce. The
story is briskly told, and well conceived." — Glasgow Herald.
Mrs. Pinsent. CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD. By ELLEN
F. PINSENT, Author of * Jenny's Case.' Crown %vo. 6s.
' Mrs. Pinsent's new novel has plenty of vigour, variety, and good writing. There
are certainty of purpose, strength of touch, and clearness of vision.' — Atheneeum.
Clark Russell. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W.
CLARK RUSSELL, Author of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc.
1 Illustrated. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
3O MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
G. Manville Fenn. AN ELECTRIC SPARK. By G. MANVILLE
FENN, Author of ' The Vicar's Wife,' ' A Double Knot,' etc. Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
{A simple and wholesome story.' — Manchester Guardian.
Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By RICHARD PRYCE,
Author of 'Miss Maxwell's Affections,' * The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,'
etc. Second Edition. Crown 8v0. 6s.
1 Mr. Pryce's work recalls the style of Octave Feuillet, by its clearness, conciseness,
its literary reserve.' — AthencBum.
Mrs. Watson. THIS MAN'S DOMINION. By the Author
of ' A High Little World.' Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON and other
Sketches. By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON, Author of 'The Web
of the Spider.' Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s.
1 By all those who delight in the uses of words, who rate the exercise of prose above
the exercise of verse, who rejoice in all proofs of its delicacy and its strength, who
believe that English prose is chief among the moulds of thought, by these
Mr. Marriott Watson's book will be welcomed.' — National Observer.
Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By MURRAY GILCHRIST.
Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s.
' The author's faults are atoned for by certain positive and admirable merits. The
romances have not their counterpart in modern literature, and to read them is a
unique experience.' — National Observer.
THREE-AND-SIXPENNY NOVELS
Edna Lyall. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. By
EDNA LYALL, Author of 'Donovan,' etc. Forty-first Thousand.
Crown Xvo. 3^. 6d.
Baring Gould. ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. By S.
BARING GOULD. New Edition. Crown 8vo. %s. 6d.
Baring Gould. MARGERY OF QUETHER, and other Stories.
By S. BARING GOULD. Crown 8vo. 3-r. 6d.
Baring Gould. JACQUETTA, and other Stories. By S. BARING
GOULD. Crown 8v0. 3^. 6d.
Miss Benson. SUBJECT TO VANITY. By MARGARET
BENSON. With numerous Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown
Svo. 3*. 6d.
1 A charming little book about household pets by a daughter of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. '—Speaker.
1 A delightful collection of studies of animal nature. It is very seldom that we get
anything so perfect in its kind. . . . The illustrations are clever, and the whole
book a singularly delightful one.1— Guardian.
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 31
Mary Gaunt. THE MOVING FINGER: Chapters from the
Romance of Australian Life. By MARY GAUNT, Author of ' Dave's
Sweetheart. ' Croivn 8vo. 3^. 6d.
1 Rich in local colour, and replete with vigorous character sketches. They strike us
as true to the life." — Times.
' Unmistakably powerful. Tragedies in the bush and riot in the settlement are
portrayed for us in vivid colour and vigorous outline.' — Westminster Gazette.
Gray. ELSA. A Novel. By E. M'QUEEN GRAY. Crown Zvo.
3-r. 6d.
J. H. Pearce. JACO TRELOAR. By J. H. PEARCE, Author of
' Esther Pentreath. ' New Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d.
The Spectator ' speaks of Mr. Pearce as ' a writer of 'exceptional power '; the 'Daily
Telegraph' calls the book ' powerful and picturesque ' ; the ' Birmingham Post'
asserts that it is 'a novel of high quality.*
X. L. AUT DIABOLUS AUT NIHIL, and Other Stories.
By X. L. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6J.
' Distinctly original and in the highest degree imaginative. The conception is almost
as lofty as Milton's.' — Spectator.
' Original to a degree of originality that may be called primitive — a kind of passion
ate directness that absolutely absorbs us." — Saturday Review.
ly absorbs us." — Saturday Rt
is something startlingly origir
themes. The terrible realism leaves no doubt of the author's power.' — Athcnteum.
Of powerful interest. There is something startlingly original in the treatment of the
t of the
O'Grady. THE COMING OF CUCULAIN. A Romance of
the Heroic Age of Ireland. By STANDISH O'GRADY, Author of
* Finn and his Companions.' Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
' The suggestions of mystery, the rapid and exciting action, are superb poetic effects.'
—Speaker.
' For light and colour it resembles nothing so much as a Swiss dawn.' — Manchester
Guardian.
Constance Smith. A CUMBERER OF THE GROUND.
By CONSTANCE SMITH, Author of ' The Repentance of Paul Went-
worth,' etc. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
Author of 'Vera.' THE DANCE OF THE HOURS. By
the Author of ' Vera.' Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d.
Esmfc Stuart. A WOMAN OF FORTY. By ESME STUART,
Author of 'Muriel's Marriage,' * Virginia's Husband,' etc. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. %s. 6d.
'The story is well written, and some of the scenes show great dramatic power.' —
Daily Chronicle.
Fenn. THE STAR GAZERS. By G. MANVILLE FENN,
Author of ' Eli's Children,' etc. New Edition. Cr. 8vo. 35. 6d.
'A stirring romance.' — Western Morning News.
' Told with all the dramatic power for which Mr. Fenn is conspicuous.'— Bradford
Observer.
32 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By EVELYN DICKINSON.
Crown 8v0. %s. 6d.
Prowse. THE POISON OF ASPS. By R. ORTON PROWSE.
Crozvn 8vo. $s. 6d.
R. Pryce. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By R. PRYCE.
Crown Svo. ^s. 6d,
Lynn Linton. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVID
SON, Christian and Communist. By E. LYNN LINTON. Eleventh
Edition. Post 8vo. is.
HALF-CROWN NOVELS
A Series of Novels by popular Authors
2/6
1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
2. DISENCHANTMENT. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
3. MR. BUTLER'S WARD. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
4. HOVENDEN, V.C. By F. MABEL ROBINSON.
5. ELI'S CHILDREN. By G. MANVILLE FENN.
6. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. MANVILLE FENN.
7. DISARMED. By M. BETHAM EDWARDS.
8. A LOST ILLUSION. By LESLIE KEITH.
9. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
10. IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. By the Author of ' Indian
Idylls.'
11. MY STEWARDSHIP. By E. M'QUEEN GRAY.
12. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN. By J. M. COBBAN.
13. A DEPLORABLE AFFAIR. By W. E. NORRIS.
14. JACK'S FATHER. By W. E. NORRIS.
15. A CAVALIER'S LAD YE. By Mrs. DICKER.
1 6. JIM B,
Books for Boys and Girls
A Series of Books by well-known Authors, well illustrated.
Crown %vo.
3/6
1. THE ICELANDER'S SWORD. By S. BARING GOULD.
2. TWO LITTLE CHILDREN AND CHING. By EDITH
E. COTHELL.
3. TODDLEBEN'S HERO. By M. M. BLAKE.
4. ONLY A GUARD ROOM DOG. By EDITH E. CUTHELI,
MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST 33
5. THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By HARRY COLLING-
WOOD.
6. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W. CLARK
RUSSELL.
7. SYD B ELTON : Or, The Boy who would not go to Sea.
By G. MANVILLE FENN.
The Peacock Library
A Series of Books for Girls by well-known Authors, /X
handsomely bound in bhie and silver, and well illustrated. jL I f~)
Crown 8v0. J /
1. A PINCH OF EXPERIENCE. By L. B. WALFORD.
2. THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. MOLESWORTH.
3. THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the
Author of * Mdle Mori.'
4. DUMPS. By Mrs. PARR, Author of ' Adam and Eve.'
5. OUT OF THE FASHION. By L. T. MEADE.
6. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. MEADE.
7. HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. MEADE. 2s. 6d.
8. THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. MEADE.
9. MY LAND OF BEULAH. By Mrs. LEITH ADAMS.
University Extension Series
A series of books on historical, literary, and scientific subjects, suitable
for extension students and home-reading circles. Each volume is com
plete in itself, and the subjects are treated by competent writers in a
broad and philosophic spirit.
Edited byj. E. SYMES, M.A.,
Principal of University College, Nottingham.
Crown Svo. Price {with some exceptions') 2s. 6d.
The following volumes are ready : —
THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. DE
B. GIBBINS, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oxon., Cobden
Prizeman. Fourth Edition. With Maps and Plans. T>S.
'A compact and clear story of our industrial development. A study of this concise
but luminous book cannot fail to give the reader a clear insight into the principal
phenomena of our industrial history. The editor and publishers are to be congrat
ulated on this first volume of their venture, and we shall look with expectant
interest for the succeeding volumes of the series.'— University Extension Journal.
34 MESSRS. METHUEN'S LIST
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. By
L. L. PRICE, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. Second Edition.
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